


Remember Me

by justheretobreakthings



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Actual!Shiro for this story, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Platonic Relationships, Supernatural/Sci-fi, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-14 01:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 67,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14125359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justheretobreakthings/pseuds/justheretobreakthings
Summary: It was strange enough for the paladins of Voltron to have found another human this far from home, locked in a Galra prison. But it was stranger still when this human insisted that he knew them, and even that he was the former red paladin of Voltron.That couldn’t possibly be true, could it? After all, if this Keith was actually a part of the Voltron team, then why does nobody remember him?





	1. Chapter 1

“All right,” Lance said into his comm as the last of the aliens in the nervous mob of limbs and prison garb turned the corner to start toward the stairwell. “Is that the last of them on this floor?”

“ _Looks like it_ ,” said Pidge’s voice, tinny and echoing through a hint of static in the helmet’s speakers. “ _Not picking anything else up on the BLIP tech_.”

Hunk’s voice piped up to join the discussion. “ _We’ll still want to do a sweep of the floor before we head back up, though, right?_ ”

Lance groaned. “I feel like we already covered every inch of the place while we were smashing through security.”

“ _Please_ ,” Pidge scoffed. “ _I was doing ninety percent of the work from here._ ”

“Well, to be fair to the rest of us, firefights are a lot more tiring than sitting on your ass in front of a computer screen _._ ”

“ _Excuse me, would_ you _like to try hacking into the security here? If it’s so damn easy_ – ”

“ _Guys, knock it off.”_ A fourth voice, this one steady and authoritative, came through the comms. “ _We’ve all worked hard and we’re all exhausted. But this is our fourth and final prison break and once we’re done here, we can all take some vacation time in the castle and de-stress. Could you_ please _just hold it together until then?”_

“Sorry, Shiro,” Lance grumbled, and Pidge did the same. “How are things up on the surface? Everyone making it out okay?” Lance added.

“ _Seem to be, yeah. Allura’s really got a knack for crowd control, so we’re getting them all into the castle pretty neat and quick. I’m not as great at the first-aid, it seems. Coran’s getting the cryopods ready, so once we’ve got everyone freed, we can figure out a priority order for them and get started on the real healing.”_

Lance frowned. “Wait, once we’ve got everyone freed? Didn’t I just get the last batch of them?”

“ _Nope_ ,” said Pidge. “ _There’s one more floor to go, it seems.”_

“You’re kidding,” Lance said with a grimace. Each floor of this prison so far had been worse than the last; the one he was on right now was dark and damp and cold, smelled faintly of urine and what may have been ammonia, and had housed prisoners who had needed a hell of a lot of coaxing to stop huddling away from the door. He hated to think there was another beyond it.

“ _I’m not kidding in the least,_ ” Pidge said. “ _This one shouldn’t take long, though; looks like most of the bots and any live prison staff came up to the higher floors earlier during our raid, so this floor should be pretty much clear. And I’m only seeing about a dozen prisoners down there._ ”

“ _You got the security tech out of the way?”_ Shiro asked.

“ _I’m working on it, I’ll have it soon. Hunk, there’s a door a few yards down the hall from your position. I’ll have that open in a moment, so get ready_.”

“ _Roger that_ ,” said Hunk.

“Want me to go join Hunk, then?” Lance asked.

“ _Actually, I’m seeing two stairwells down, and one’s a couple halls away from you. I figure you and Hunk can each take an end and meet in the middle. Walk to your right and take the next two left turns you come by.”_

Lance sighed and started off, following Pidge’s directions. “I gotta say, I’m not crazy about moving around solo down here.”

“ _You know, uh, I’m actually with Lance a little_ ,” Hunk commented. “ _This place just feels a little too much like a great setting for a horror movie_.”

“ _That description could apply to half the places we’ve been to since we came into space. Lance will meet you soon, and I’ll be monitoring from here. So no worries, Hunk, you can chill out.”_

“Hey, you hear that, Hunk?” Lance said. “Turns out all this time, we just needed to tell you to chill out. I can’t believe Pidge cured your anxiety.”

“ _Lance_ ,” Shiro scolded.

“Sorry.”

“ _Come on, guys, we’re nearly done. Stay focused. And, hey, stay positive. We’ve had a record number of rescues these past few quintants, and that number’s still getting higher. Don’t burn out now; once we’re off this planet you guys should be in the mood to celebrate.”_

“ _Yeah, everything’s fantastic_ ,” Pidge said sarcastically. “ _I guess you’re right that it’s great we got that intel about the prisons. Almost makes the fact that a Blade base had to be raided and destroyed to get it seem worth it.”_

“ _What the_ hell _did I just say about staying positive_.”

“Ah, Shiro, don’t mind Pidge, you know she gets cranky when she misses her nap.”

“ _I can turn some of these lasers back on, you know. Don’t tempt me_.”

“ _Uh, guys?_ ” said Hunk. “ _As much as I’m enjoying the banter, I’d really appreciate it if you could get that other door open so Lance could come down?”_

“ _Right, sorry. I’ll have it in just a couple of ticks.”_

“You all right there, buddy?” Lance asked. “Nothing too horrible down there?”

“ _Well, um, it’s not great. I got one of the cells cleared, and the guy in it wasn’t looking so hot_.”

“Injured?”

“ _Spooked, mainly. Didn’t make a sound. Also, there’s, like, machines? Not in the cells, in other rooms. I think they might be labs or something. Hang on, found another person. It’s just one per room, I think. Got them spread out.”_

“ _All right, Lance, you’re in_ ,” Pidge spoke up, just as Lance heard the soft electronic hum of a sliding door opening a little ways down the hall. “ _Hunk, Lance will be right there_.”

Lance lowered the volume of the comm as he descended the stairs, Hunk keeping up a running commentary of everything he saw. The hallway he reached was nearly pitch-black, and he had to turn the lights in the corners of his visor on to see properly. A door beside him had a small green light above it, and the next door down the hall from it had a red light that turned green as Lance watched. Pidge must be unlocking them still.

He opened the first door. The room inside was silent, with no hint of movement. Hunk, it seemed, was right about there being labs here. Lance’s first impression of the room was that it looked a bit like an operating room, complete with monitors and utility columns. He shuddered as he closed the door and moved on to the next room.

This one was more of a standard prison cell, if an extremely barebones one. A cot in the corner seemed to be the only furnishing, and it was going unused as the cell’s sole occupant – a creature that Lance thought looked rather like an enormous frog, if frogs had exoskeletons – was instead manacled by the wrists to the back wall.

He opened the kit in his hand, the one full of Pidge-approved lock-picking devices that had been his best friend during these prison raids, and approached the prisoner, watching the steady rise and fall of the body. “Hey, you all right?” he asked. The prisoner froze. His head was resting against his chest, facing the floor, and he didn’t look up at Lance’s voice. In fact, he didn’t so much as move a muscle. “Okay, um, I’m here to help you. That okay?” He stepped toward the alien. “I’m gonna get you out of these things, and then I’m getting you away from here. I’ll only be a moment.”

He cautiously took hold of the manacle holding the right wrist, and when the alien still didn’t respond, he began working to unlock it, working in silence. It wasn’t until he started on the second manacle that he spoke again, but this time he turned his volume back up and spoke into the comm rather than to the alien. “Hey, this guy’s seeming pretty unresponsive. I think I’m gonna need help getting him out.”

“ _I’m already on my way down to help Hunk with the same_ ,” Shiro said. “ _Hang in there.”_

“Okay, good, I just didn’t want – “ The manacle clicked open, and in an instant, the alien’s head shot up, making Lance let out a small, surprised yelp. The alien sprang away from the wall and shot out of the room and into the hallway, seeming for all the world like he’d been waiting his whole life for the opportunity to break away.

“ _Lance?_ ” Shiro called. “ _What’s wrong?_ ”

“Uh, nothing,” Lance answered. “Just, cancel the help. Think he’s good to go.”

“ _Ah. Well, hey, these people have been through some trauma. Best to take any weird behavior in stride.”_

“Gotcha. I’ll try.”

He continued on his way down the hallway. It seemed the prisoners on this floor had had it rough, and they were letting him know it. The next one he found, a noodle-thin, eight-limbed alien he freed from a tank in one of the lab-like rooms, had screamed wordlessly at him as he worked off the lid of the tank and tried to bite him the moment the opening was wide enough to attempt; and in the next room, another cell, a gelatinous figure had huddled like an armadillo into a perfect sphere that it took every bit of persuasive skill Lance possessed to get them to come out of.

The fourth prisoner he found, though, was the one that truly shocked him.

This one was in one of the labs as well, laid out on an operating table. He was strapped down by his wrists and ankles, and a device was attached to his head, what looked to be halfway between the sort of objects Lance and the other paladins wore during their mind-melding exercise, and a metallic spider, and draping wires connecting it to a dozen different machines. He looked to be unconscious, as his eyes remained closed even as Lance came into the room none-too-silently, and his breathing was ragged and unsteady. There was discoloration on his nose and around one eye, from bruising, and although he was fully dressed such that Lance couldn’t see the state of the rest of his body, a splattering of dark stains on the operating table beside him gave him a pretty good hint.

None of this, however, was what shocked him.

“Um, guys?” he said into his comm, his voice a half-whisper in his stunned state. “There’s – this, um, this prisoner – ”

In the brief tick of silence that passed as Lance fumbled to remember how to use words, Shiro prompted him: “ _What about them? Lance? Are you okay?”_

“I’m fine, I'm fine, it’s just – he’s human.”

There was silence on the comms. Apparently the news was just as surprising to the rest of the team as it was to him. Pidge was the first to break the silence, urgently crying, “ _Lance, did you just find – ?!”_

“It’s not Matt,” he cut her off. “Or Sam. Sorry, Pidge. I, um, I don’t know who it is.” He leaned in to take a closer look at the figure before him. It was a man, young, probably around his age, and looked to be near his height as well. He was slender, and his skin seemed pale, at least as far as Lance could tell in this lighting. His face was angular, but still youthful, and was partly covered by an uneven curtain of hair that looked like a style Lance had seen only in photographs from the nineteen-eighties. “Shiro, do you know of any other humans who might be this far out in space?”

“ _I don’t know of any astronauts besides myself and the Holts who didn’t come back to Earth_ ,” Shiro answered. “ _You’re sure he’s human?”_

“Pretty sure I know my own species well enough to recognize it on someone else.”

“ _Is it… maybe some sort of shape-shifter?”_ Hunk asked. “ _And took the form of a human when one was approaching?”_

“He’s unconscious, he wouldn’t have been able to do any shapeshifting.

“ _Then, it – it must be someone who left Earth at some point after we did_ ,” Shiro said slowly. “ _I could see if he looks familiar at all after you get him out, but… it’s probably a long shot_.”

“All right,” Lance said, still nervously watching the prisoner. “I, uh, I’ll probably need some help. This guy doesn’t look like he’ll be up for walking on his own two feet.”

_“Hunk and I will be there as soon as possible. Just do what you can for now.”_

“Roger.” He took a deep breath and stepped down along the operating table to start unstrapping the man. The blistering he saw on the thin wrists as he removed the straps had him cursing under his breath, and the ankles seemed to be in the same state.

Once the arms and legs were freed, Lance moved back toward the head, biting his lip in apprehension as he took in the device on the man’s head. It didn’t look to be hooked into his skin at all, so Lance figured he could safely remove it, but he still was slow in the process, cautious, pulling it away delicately so that the metal appendages broke contact with the head one at a time.

Still, something must have snagged somewhere, because when the object was half-removed, the prisoner finally stirred. Lance froze in place as the man’s breath hitched, and then, with a twitch of his head so faint it was nearly invisible, he let out a frail whimper.

“I’m sorry!” Lance whispered. “I’m sorry, buddy, didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m almost done, I swear.” The man may or may not have heard him, but Lance continued muttering reassurances as he finished removing the device. All the while, the prisoner seemed to be gradually growing awake. His whimper slowly switched to a groan, and he began squirming on the table, then stiffening and changing the pace of his breathing, an indication that his movement must have been aggravating some sort of injury.

“Hey,” Lance said softly. “Hey, hey, calm down, all right?” He put a hand as gently as he could on the man’s shoulder, rubbing it in what he hoped the latter would recognize as a comforting gesture. “I’m only here to help. Just hold still for now, I’ve got people coming to help get you out of here. Can you hang tight, bud?”

He was answered with another soft moan, and the shoulder beneath Lance’s hand tensed as, slowly and deliberately, the man’s eyes flickered, and gradually the eyelids peeled apart, leaving them opened but narrowed.

What little Lance could see of the eyes rolled tentatively back and forth for a moment before finally hardening into focus, and the man squinted up at Lance, brow furrowing. Then, suddenly, his eyes shot fully open, round as globes, startlingly purple irises on milk-white, staring at Lance in what looked to be utter shock.

Lance met his gaze, not sure how to interpret this reaction. “Um,” he said. “I, uh – are you doing okay?”

The man’s lips parted, and he drew in a deep breath before he spoke, his voice rough and tight – from fear or disuse, Lance didn’t know – but it wasn’t in answer to his question. Instead, he said, tone incredulous, “Lance?”

Lance stared at him, and he needed a moment to find his voice. “Did – did you say – ?”

“Lance!” the man cut him off, and his breathing seemed to double in speed as he started squirming again with a renewed vigor. “Lance, you’re – how did – ” His eyes darted frantically around the room, and then he squeezed them shut, as if the action had left him dizzy. “Where’s – where are – ”

His voice was already fading, and as much as Lance knew the man probably wasn’t up for cognizance, he couldn’t help himself from gently shaking his shoulder, relieved when the eyes opened up wearily. “You said my name. How did you know my name?”

The man blinked uncomprehendingly. “You came,” he rasped out, ignoring Lance’s question completely. “I – I didn’t think…” And with that, his eyes rolled back up into his head and he collapsed back into unconsciousness.

That seemed to have been the last of his awareness for the time being, as he didn’t stir again. He lay there beside the equally silent Lance until, finally, footsteps announced the arrival of the black and yellow paladins.

“How’s he holding up?” Shiro asked as he strode into the room. He bent over the operating table, intent on getting a better look, but he paused when he noticed the expression on Lance’s face. “Lance?” he asked. “Did something happen?”

“He said my name,” Lance said. His voice was faint and flat.

Shiro stared up at him. “He said – are you sure?”

Numbly, Lance nodded. “He said my name,” he repeated. “I think – Shiro, I don’t know him, but… I think he knows me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the promise of rest and relaxation upon finishing up the prison break and returning to the castle, none of the paladins had yet done anything restful or relaxing. Instead, they and Coran had, for varga after varga, spent as much time as they could in the med bay, with the cryopods. Ostensibly, they were there to keep a monitoring eye on all of the newly-freed aliens who were in the pods, but they all knew it was one pod in particular that had been holding their attention.

The human floated still and silent in the pod. The only time Lance had seen another human in the pod – not counting himself, of course, since he hadn’t been in a position to observe – was Shiro, and even back then Lance had been unnerved by how much a person in a cryopod looked like a corpse. The effect with this guy, though, was increased tenfold. He was already pale in the first place, and as the fluids in the pod worked away the bruises on his face, the dark half-moon shadows beneath his eyes became visible. His figure, which Lance had initially labelled simply ‘thin’, was actually more approaching gaunt, and his edges were rough, haggard, from his chipped and uneven fingernails to his disaster of a hairstyle; Lance had privately started calling the man Mullet in his head in lieu of knowing his actual name.

He had mentioned in passing to Coran shortly after the man had been place in the cryopod that sensation of looking at a dead body, and Coran had patted his shoulder and dismissed it. By his reckoning, the man was certainly in a bad state, but he wasn’t within the range of death. Judging by the ages of the wounds the cryopod had detected and his current level of emaciation, he’d probably been in the prison only a couple of phoebs, a shorter stint than any of the other prisoners who had been rescued from the bottom floor.

Lance replied that he didn’t  _actually_  think this guy was a corpse, he was just making an observation.

After all, the team could usually count on him to fill awkward silences, and the atmosphere around the med bay certainly qualified. Each of the paladins save Allura had taken a turn to examine Mullet closely, to see if his appearance rang any bells, but none of them could remember ever having seen him before. It seemed, then, that this was a perfect stranger who just happened to have wound up leaving Earth to be part of an intergalactic war at the same time they had. Needless to say, the curiosity was eating away at the team, and they were all impatiently waiting for the healing cycle to finally finish so they could get answers.

And of course, his reason for being in a Galra prison was only one of the answers they needed. The other, just as perplexing if not more, was how the quiznak Mullet had known Lance’s name.

The paladins had exchanged guesses and speculations, none of which seemed particularly plausible. “Maybe you misheard him,” Hunk had suggested.

“I heard him loud and clear,” Lance had replied. “He definitely said my name. Three times, might I add.”

“Well, maybe it was a word similar to Lance and he just messed up the pronunciation? Like, he was trying to say, uh, plants? Or – or lands, or dance.”

“Hunk, why the flying fuck would he have said ‘dance’?”

“I dunno. He was in prison for quite a while, maybe he really needed some entertainment, and was making a request. Just spitballing.”

Pidge cut in with her own theory while Lance rolled his eyes with an exasperated huff. “Voltron’s been getting more well-known, and getting media attention. Maybe he recognized you from that?”

“I don’t know if the timeline would work,” Shiro said with a frown. “We haven’t been making ceremonial appearances for long, so he might very well have already been in that prison; we’d need a more precise idea of when he wound up there to know for sure. And most people just know us collectively as ‘Voltron’, not individually by name.”

“It’s because our shows are so impersonal,” Coran piped up. “You all just stay in your lions for the whole show, don’t really interact with the audience. If you’d just look over those drafts I’ve started so we can take the script in a new direction – ”

“Not now, Coran,” Shiro groaned.

“Do you think he guessed?” Pidge asked. “Saw a human, picked a human name. He probably had like, what, a one in a hundred-thousand chance of getting it right or something. It’s within the realm of possibility.”

“We’re really grasping at straws now, aren’t we,” Lance sighed.

“I think all we can do is wait,” came Allura’s voice from behind them. She entered the med bay looking as frazzled and harried as was to be expected considering all the refugees she had been tending to. The other paladins had all lent a hand during those few spare moments when they weren’t loitering in the med bay, but none of them could hold a candle to Allura’s people skills and handling of crowds, so a heavy portion of the work had fallen onto her.

She approached the group to stand beside them as they still stared up at the cryopod. “Anyone’s healing cycle ending soon?” she asked Coran. “We’ve still got a couple of refugees who I think should be rotated into a pod before they leave the castle.”

“The amphibious fellow on the far end should be finishing up in a few doboshes,” Coran said. “You can start ushering in whoever’s going to take it next.”

“How are things going out there?” Shiro asked. “We got any headway yet on getting these people back to their home planets.”

“It’s a logistical nightmare, I have to say,” Allura said. “But I did manage to get in touch with some of our rebel forces who should be able to provide transport. We may have to have them act as a shuttle service for a bit, and I don’t know yet how many vehicles they have. I do so wish we still had the crafts to spare.”

The rest of the team averted their gazes from her at the reminder. The attack on the castle ship had been weeks ago, and no one had gotten hurt to any degree that a varga in a cryopod couldn’t fix, but the damage that the attackers had done to the castle’s equipment and inventory had been quite a blow. Pidge had been practically distraught over the fact that they had somehow managed to circumvent the security measures that she and Coran had so painstakingly put into place (and recruited all the others to help out with for hours at a time) after the incident with Sendak. And Lance had never seen Pidge as angry as she was when she discovered that some of the invaders had found a way into the castle’s internal network, tampering with or wiping all sorts of data that she hadn’t been able to restore.

Still, the important thing, as Shiro had reminded the other paladins so constantly that eventually the words seemed to lose their meanings and become a random series of sounds, was that all of them had made it out okay. They were fine, at least relatively, the lions were fine, and they could all recover.

Of course, it did all mean that the castle wasn’t as suited as it used to be for taking in this number of refugees and coordinating their return to their home planets, but they weren’t about to sit on the intel they’d gotten about the Galra prison and wait around for the castle to be back in tip-top shape.

It was fortunate that the med bay was one of the few places that had come through the raid unscathed. If they couldn’t be efficient with transportation or lodging, they could make up for it by being efficient with healing. Allura and Coran took charge of rotating the more severely injured aliens through, and the cycles were growing shorter and shorter as they moved on to lower and lower priority cases.

Mullet had one of the longest healing cycles out of any of the freed prisoners, so, when his cryopod finally,  _finally,_  opened, the paladins were champing at the bit to be there and at long last get their curiosity sated.

Shiro had made it to the pod first, and was at the front of the group when the pod opened, so he was the one who caught the man, holding onto his arm and waist as he stumbled out, on the verge of tumbling right onto the floor. Lance sympathized; experience had taught him that coming out of a cryopod was akin to stepping off of a roller coaster that had gone painfully overboard with the loop-de-loops.

The paladins and Coran were still and silent as Mullet got his bearings in Shiro’s arms, and finally looked up at his surroundings. There were those purple eyes again, wide and bemused as they blinked wearily and darted from face to face, finally settling on Shiro.

With the tiniest hint of a smile managing to work its way out, the man said – voice still raspy but stronger than it had been when Lance had first found him in the lab – “Shiro!” He collapsed further into the black paladin, arms reaching up to lightly encircle him, as if Shiro was hugging him rather than simply holding him upright. “God, I – I thought I’d never – I missed you,” he continued softly, closing his eyes again and leaning in, practically nestling his head on Shiro’s shoulder.

Shiro’s eyes were wide, stunned, his body visibly tensing. He glanced around at the others, who looked just as surprised and baffled as he was, except for Lance – he was baffled as well, of course, but not as surprised as the rest. He offered Shiro a helpless shrug in response to the worried glance the latter sent him; he was glad to know he wasn’t the only one who had absolutely no idea how to respond to this.

“You, uh…” Shiro said slowly. “You missed me?”

“Well, yeah,” Mullet said, lifting his head off of Shiro’s shoulder. “Of course I – ” He paused as he met Shiro’s gaze and finally seemed to notice his facial expression. “… Is something wrong?” he asked.

Shiro looked back to Lance again for help, and Mullet slowly pulled out of the quasi-hug and stared at the rest of the group. “Guys?” he said softly. “Did – did something happen while I was gone?”

Allura took a small step forward. “While you were gone?” she repeated.

“Right, while I – um – ” Hesitantly, he stepped back, brow creased, any ghost of a smile he’d had when he spotted Shiro replaced by anxious confusion. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

Shiro straightened up fully and, with one last fleeting look at the others, decided to take the lead on this one. “Do you mind answering a couple of questions?” he asked.

Mullet raised a brow. “Um… go ahead, I guess?”

“First of all – how do you know our names?”

Somehow the stranger managed to look even more confused than he was before. “What?”

“Lance and myself – you called both of us by name. How do you know our names?”

Mullet’s eyes strayed to Lance before he answered, shaking his head, “What – what the hell are you talking about? Why would I have forgotten your names?”

“Forgotten?” Lance said. “How long have you known our names?”

“Wha – a  _while_ , I guess!” The man’s voice was gaining a bit more strength and volume, and the frustration in it growing clearer. “Since the Garrison at least!”

Lance turned to look at Hunk, who had turned to meet his eyes as well, probably thinking the same thing Lance was: they had been social butterflies at the Garrison, and they knew all of their classmates, at least by face. This guy hadn’t been one of them.

“Okay,” Shiro said, “Maybe you should answer something else first: who are you?”

Mullet’s jaw dropped, and he froze for a moment, utterly shocked. He took another shaky step back. “I – I’m Keith? Why are you – do – do I look different or something?” Cautiously, he lifted a hand to his cheek to feel his face. “You’re starting to freak me out…”

Allura leaned forward to speak softly into Shiro’s ear. “Keith. Do you know anyone named Keith?” Shiro shook his head, still staring at Mullet (Keith, Lance corrected himself. They had a name for him now.)

Keith’s brow creased downward into a scowl – one that wasn’t quite enough to mask his growing alarm – and he turned to Lance. “Is this supposed to be one of those stupid jokes of yours that I don’t get?” he snapped. “Because it’s not funny.”

“No one is laughing,” Pidge remarked.

“Well, knock it off!” He had backed up further still, and now his back was against the glass of the cryopod he’d just stepped out of. His eyes were fearful, and Lance noticed that the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed had become deeper and faster. Overall, he was starting to resemble a cornered animal. “I mean it, it’s not funny! Shiro!”

“Look, nobody is trying to play any sort of joke,” Shiro said, much too calmly. “We’re just trying to figure out what’s going on. And, well, how you know us.”

Keith turned his fearful eyes to Shiro, a fevered desperation in them. “You – you’re serious,” he said. “You really don’t – you don’t know me?” He looked toward the others, and his voiced cracked as he asked, “None of you know me?”

Lance was almost tempted to break in and lie, to tell him, yes, of course they knew him, simply because it was the only thing he could think of doing to fix that awful, panicked, pleading expression on Keith’s face. But he didn’t. He shook his head minutely, and around him the others did the same, with a couple of murmurs in the negative.

Keith slid an inch down the glass, his knees starting to visibly shake. “You don’t know me,” he repeated, like he was still trying to make sense of the words. “You don’t know me. You… forgot.” His breaths sped up further, growing audible, a frantic panting, and he reached his hands up to his head, combing them into his hair and gripping as if ready to tear it out, and slid further along the cryopod, shaking as he approached the floor. “Oh my God… You don’t know me. Oh my  _God_.”

Before he even realized his legs were moving, Lance found himself hastily approaching Keith, kneeling down toward him, seeing Shiro do the same on the periphery of his vision. He knew an oncoming panic attack when he saw one; he had talked Hunk through a handful over the years, and had endured a couple of them himself. “Hey,” he said, his voice as calm as he could make it. “Hey, Keith, Keith, you need to relax. You’re okay. You need to breathe, okay? You need to slow down, and breathe.”

“I  _am_  breathing!” Keith shouted, whipping his head up toward Lance with what would have been a vicious snarl if his eyes weren’t glistening, pupils shrunk in his panic. Technically, he wasn’t wrong, Lance supposed. Hyperventilating still counted as breathing.

Still, this was no time to debate semantics. Lance reached out to take Keith’s shoulder, but when the latter flinched away, he rested his hand on the glass of the cryopod above his shoulder instead. “Not that way,” he said. “Take it slow. Four seconds in, four seconds out. Like this.” He demonstrated.

“I know how to fucking breathe,” Keith said through gritted teeth, but, after a couple more of his shallow gasping breaths, he squeezed his eyes shut and obliged, slowing his breath and inhaling and exhaling through his nose. He was closer to three seconds per breath than the four that Lance had instructed, but it was good enough.

A hand fell onto Lance’s shoulder, gently pulling him back. Lance glanced back to see Shiro, and was confused at first, until he saw that Shiro had his other arm out as well to push back the rest of the group, who Lance hadn’t noticed had huddled in closer. Oh, he realized, right. Better not crowd him.

“You feeling better, Keith?” Shiro asked.

“No,” Keith answered bluntly. He brought his knees up closer to his chest, folded his arms over them, and buried his head in them.

Shiro frowned, but he nodded. “Okay, that’s – that’s fair enough. But, well, we still need answers, if you’re feeling up to talking. We need to know a bit more about what’s going on and how we can help you. And – and who you are.”

“And why me and Hunk don’t, um, recognize you from our classes,” Lance added.

Keith mumbled something, but the low volume of his voice and the fact that he was muffled by his arms rendered whatever he said inaudible. “Uh, sorry?” Shiro said. “Didn’t catch that.”

So Keith lifted his head to meet Shiro’s gaze, and it seemed that his disquiet had finally reached the point of tears, since the droplets were shining from his eyes and just on the verge of spilling over. “I said, I wasn’t just their classmate.”

“So what were you, then?” Lance asked.

Keith turned to face him instead, and Lance wished that he hadn’t, since one of those tears had made it out and was rolling down his cheek – it was honestly difficult to meet the man’s helpless gaze, and became even more so when he answered:

“I am – I  _was_  – a paladin of Voltron.”


	3. Chapter 3

Allura was the one who suggested that they move somewhere else and get Keith settled down a bit before making him tell the whole story, although this suggestion only came about after a couple of minutes of cajoling Keith and never getting more than clipped, one-word answers. The group of them moved to the kitchen, Hunk hurrying ahead to warm up some “soup” (which was mostly just a particularly watery form of food goo with a hodgepodge of herbs tossed in, but Hunk managed to make it decent, or at least edible). Coran separated from them, needing to stay in the med bay and attend to the aliens still in their pods, but Lance overheard him asking Allura to tell him everything when they finished, and spare no detail, so he was keeping in the loop.

Even as they sat him down in the kitchen, Keith wouldn’t stop muttering that he wasn’t hungry. Which was ridiculous, since not only had Coran already told them that he was malnourished – and it was more than obvious in the body-hugging cryosuit – but he also had just come out of the cryopod, and everyone was always hungry when they came out of the cryopod.

Still, he didn’t unfold his arms when Hunk set the soup on the table in front of him, and he only relented and picked up a spork when he looked up to notice five pairs of eyes staring apprehensively at him. He took a single sip of the soup before setting the spork back down and saying quietly, “I’m telling the truth.”

The paladins glanced around at each other. “No one said you weren’t, Keith,” Shiro replied.

Keith crossed his arms again and eyed him skeptically. “So you’re saying you believe me? You believe I was a paladin? Your teammate?”

Shiro hesitated. “Well, um – well, you can understand why it might be a little difficult to wrap our heads around.”

“A little difficult?” Pidge said. “It might just be a  _little_  difficult to believe that all of us, say, simultaneously contracted some sort of laser-focused amnesia that only messed with our memories of one specific person, and that one person also just so happened to be a paladin, despite every lion already having a pilot?”

“Pidge,” Shiro said, looking sternly back at her.

Pidge met his gaze unblushingly. “I’m not trying to antagonize or anything. Just laying it all out on the table.”

Keith scowled. “Look, I know how it sounds, but – ”

“Why don’t you start from the beginning,” Shiro cut him off. “Just give us the run-down of what’s happened, and we’ll listen.”

“Okay…” Keith said slowly. “Um, do you mean, like, the beginning of Voltron, or – ?”

“Just whenever you think the beginning is would be fine.”

Keith chewed at his bottom lip and dropped his gaze to the soup, his brow furrowed in thought. He still kept his eyes down as he hesitantly began, “I guess, um, the Garrison? That’s where I, uh – ” His eyes flickered toward Shiro. “They had that mentorship program thing there, where they have upperclassmen help out some of the incoming cadets, and I got paired with Shiro, and, um…” He sighed. “Well, a lot went into it, but long story short, we were close. Like, really close.”

Shiro’s brows shot up in dismay. “Wait, are you saying I – you and I – ?”

Keith stared for a moment as Shiro stammered, until what Shiro was asking finally seemed to click. “Oh! No, no, not like – we weren’t  _involved_  or anything, we were just, um, close. Like – like brothers? I guess. And we got to know each other a lot for a few years, right up until you left for – for Kerberos. And didn’t come back.”

He bit his lip and paused his speaking to idly fidget with his spork. Lance pegged it as some sort of nervous tic. “Anyway,” Keith continued, “I kinda… didn’t handle it well, not having Shiro around. Wound up losing my temper at the wrong time and to the wrong people so I, uh, got kicked out. But I’d been so sure that there was something wrong with the story the Garrison told us about what happened on Kerberos, so I – I stuck around. There was this shack, this little house, out in the desert near the Garrison, that I’d bought a couple years back; guy who owned it just wanted it out of his hands, let it go for practically nothing. And I sorta lived there, for a while. Kept an eye on things. Up until the night Shiro came back to Earth.”

Lance leaned in, listening intently. Up until this point, everything Keith had said could very well have been true; he had no way of knowing, he didn’t know Shiro except by reputation before everything with Voltron. But he remembered the night that he, Pidge, and Hunk had been on the roof of the Garrison and had witnessed Shiro’s less-than-warm welcome back to Earth. This was something he could corroborate.

“I had realized something was on its way to Earth, about a day ahead of time, so I was ready when I saw it coming down from the sky, and – ”

“Wait,” Lance interrupted. “How did you know that Shiro was coming?”

“It’s, uh, complicated,” Keith said slowly. “I guess it was sort of, um, half from keeping an eye on the stars, half gut instinct?”

“Hell of a gut you’ve got there.”

Keith shot Lance a dark glare. “I’m just saying what happened, all right? Look, Shiro was there, and I was there to help him. I, uh, created a bit of a diversion, and I broke in…”

And this was where Keith’s story and Lance’s memory of the same night clashed. Keith knew what had happened, he knew what events had occurred that night, but the details… it was honestly annoying the way he skewed them. In Keith’s version of the story,  _he_  was the one who’d freed Shiro from where he’d been held, not Lance;  _he_  had led them all on an escape on his own hoverbike, not one that Pidge had hotwired;  _he_  was the one who had spotted the way that frequency had matched the mountain range rather than Hunk.

It rubbed Lance the wrong way, hearing this stranger who somehow knew far too much about them casually taking credit for things he and his friends had done.

But he let him go on, as did the rest of the paladins, occasionally catching each other’s eyes with a raised brow when he threw in those details. That is, he let him go on up to the point when Keith described finding the Red Lion, and Lance could hold his tongue no longer.

“Okay, whoa, man,” he said, earning himself another glower from Keith, which he brushed off. “Look, clearly you know a hell of a lot about how we all started Voltron and all, but don’t you start trying to claim that Red was your lion.”

Keith’s brows furrowed. “But she  _was_. I was – ”

“So, what did that make me then, the team mascot?”

“What? No, no, you flew Blue.”

Lanced rolled his eyes. “Yeah,  _once_. Just to get her off Earth. But the moment we got to the castle, Blue was Allura’s. If I had Blue, who did Allura have?” He looked over at Allura, whose lips were pursed in irritation, but who had a flash of curiosity in her eyes as she waited for Keith’s answer.

“Allura, um – ” Keith looked toward Allura as well, brows arched in an expression that Lance couldn’t quite place. Embarrassment, maybe? Or guilt? “Allura wasn’t a paladin. Not at first.”

“ _Allura_ wasn’t a paladin?” Lance repeated incredulously, at the same time that Shiro asked, “What do you mean, not at first?”

Keith flinched and sank down an inch into his chair. “Well, um, there was a point, after we’d been working as Voltron for a while, when a big attack we’d launched against Zarkon kinda ended up going south, and Shiro, um, he vanished.” He looked warily at the assembled paladins, whose faces remained more or less blank. Yes, they’d gone through that as well, losing Shiro, and it had been a dark blot in their time as a team. But Lance had no idea what that had to do with the topic at hand.

“So…” Lance prompted.

“So, that’s when – well, the team decided someone else needed to step up and pilot Black, since we didn’t know if –  _when_  – Shiro would be coming back. And I wound up in the Black Lion, and Lance switched from Blue to Red, and Allura started piloting Blue. She’d practically been a paladin before the fact, controlling the castle and all, just hadn’t had a lion before then.”

“I see,” Allura said, and there was still a stony tension in her face as she addressed Keith. “So you were not only a paladin of Voltron, but the  _leader_ of Voltron.”

“Um, technically,” Keith said slowly. “But – but only for a little while. I wasn’t, uh, wasn’t really cut out for it, leading a team and all. Shiro came back eventually and I kinda transitioned away from it, and he took over again.”

“And you went back to Red?” Hunk asked.

“Well, no, I – I kinda, um – moved away from the whole Voltron thing, a bit?”

Pidge raised a brow, giving Keith a calculating stare. “You’re saying that you were the leader of Voltron… and you left?”

“No, look, don’t say it like that,” Keith said. “I didn’t just up and abandon Voltron or anything; you had five paladins, and I was still working for the war efforts, I just was switching focus to missions with the Blade instead. I was never – ”

“The Blade?” Allura interrupted.

“Yeah, the – ” Keith’s eyes widened, a trace of the panic from earlier creeping back onto his face. “Shit, you – you don’t remember the Blade of Marmora either?!”

Allura huffed. “No, I know the Blade of Marmora full well. And I also know that they only allow Galra as members. How, precisely, did you join in on their missions?”

Keith paled as he met Allura’s gaze, before hastily dropping it to stare at his soup instead. “Right,” he mumbled. “I forgot, you – you don’t know – I’m, um… I did qualify, actually, I only found out fairly recently that I’m, uh, well, I – I have – ”

“Are you saying you’re, what, part-Galra?” Pidge finished for him.

Keith grimaced, and his eyes darted up again, turning not to Pidge but back to Allura. “Yes?” he answered softly.

Lance wasn’t the only one who turned to look at Allura after this proclamation. Everyone in the kitchen had turned their eyes to her, waiting for a reaction. It was no secret that Allura wasn’t particularly fond of the Galra – she had good reason not to, to be fair – and she had formed the alliance between Voltron and the Blade of Marmora begrudgingly and only after very long debates with Shiro and Coran about the tactical advantages such an alliance would provide.

So if Keith really did know the paladins, it was no wonder he seemed nervous about how Allura would respond. Luckily, though, the princess kept perfect composure aside from her lips tightening into a thin line. “I see,” she said stiffly.

Keith sighed. The sharp wariness in his eyes still had him looking on edge, but he relaxed his shoulders a bit when no one offered any follow-up questions about this revelation. “Yeah. I’d – I’d been with the Blade last I remember. Had been going on infiltration missions with them. We’d gone to one of the Galra bases out on the edge of Messier 81; they had this central communications hub with a database that would have been all kinds of useful, and I’d been helping to disarm security and, um…” He set his elbows onto the table and pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead. “Something triggered the alarm, I guess. And there were a lot more sentries there than our intel made it seem when we were planning. I think something exploded, and I got hit in the head – or, um, or passed out, maybe – things get kinda fuzzy around that point.”

Shiro frowned and leaned in. “Was it just your actual capture that you don’t remember well? Or, do you remember what happened while you were imprisoned?”

“Um, bits and pieces,” Keith said, brows furrowing. “A lot of bright lights and headaches, and I think I was moved to a couple different prisons? There were – I remember different places. And they, um – ” He paused, dropping his gaze again. “Do you – do you mind if I skip a couple of the details? They’re not important, I’d just, um, I’d rather not… discuss everything. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Shiro said, the sympathy clear in his voice. “I know how Galra prisons can be. If you don’t want to relive it, you don’t have to – ”

“Actually, Shiro,” Allura cut in, “I really think any information he can remember would be valuable to us. I’d rather he not skip any details; we don’t know which ones we may end up needing.”

Shiro let out a breath. “I was going to say, you don’t have to  _yet._  This isn’t an interrogation, Allura.”

“Well, perhaps it should be, if we want to find out anything we really need to know.”

Keith’s head shot back up, and he leveled a heavy glare toward the princess. “Hey, I’ve answered all your questions, haven’t I? It’s not like I’m not cooperating with you! What do you want me to tell you, huh?! What do you want me to do to convince you I’m not hiding anything, and I’m not lying?! Want me to list the details of all our battle plans? Or regale you with stories of our adventures? Huh? I can do that, you know. We freed the Blamerans when Allura healed their planet. We defended the Arusians against a robeast, we found out that the King of Olkarion was in compliance with the Galra. We had a show of arms parade on Puig!”

“Keith – ” Shiro started.

But Keith kept barreling onward, his voice rising into a shout. “Pidge likes peanut butter cookies but not peanuts! Hunk’s secret brownie ingredient is vanilla extract! Shiro has a leap day birthday and he waits until March first to have cake because he says celebrating it early is cheating! Lance swims and holds his middle school freestyle record but he sucks at the butterfly and gets real goddamn bitter about it!”

“Hey!” Lance said, affronted.

Keith ignored him. “How the fuck do you think I know all that, huh?! How do you think I’d remember all that if I didn’t  _know you?!”_

“I don’t know,” Allura said. “I do know that doesn’t make sense to any of us, and that’s why we need to – ”

With a grunt of frustration, Keith slammed his hands onto the table and stood from his seat. “You still don’t believe me, do you?! Ask someone! Call up the Blade and ask Kolivan, he can vouch for me!” Lance heard a soft rattling sound, and placed it as coming from the table; Keith was shaking so hard that the whole table was shaking right along with him.

“Kolivan’s been making an underground tour of Blade bases to reinforce security,” Shiro said. “He’ll be incommunicado for a couple more quintants, until he’s reached Mayall’s Object.”

Keith groaned and brought his hands to his hair, grasping it in aggravation. “Well, who’s available, then?  _Someone’s_  bound to remember me!”

“Can I make a suggestion?” Pidge asked.

“What?!” Keith snapped.

“We could ask the lions.”

* * *

The air in the lions’ hangar was tense as the group gathered in front of the Black Lion, Keith and Shiro at the front of the group as the lion lowered her jaw to allow her pilot, and his strange guest, inside.

“So, um, what exactly do you want me to do?” Keith asked after some hesitation.

“Anything, really,” Shiro said. “Black still had a connection to Zarkon ten thousand years after he was her paladin. If you piloted her, there’s bound to be some of the bond left lingering. We’ll just see if you can reach that bond. Talk to her, think at her. Whatever you need to do.”

Keith took a deep breath and nodded. “Right. I’m ready if you are.”

Shiro took him by the shoulder and ushered him toward the lion. “We may be a few minutes,” he said to the other paladins. “If you see, like, some lights turn on or anything, speak up, okay?”

“Will do,” Lance answered, and Shiro gave him a curt nod before disappearing with Keith into Black’s cockpit.

Silence reigned in the hangar. None of them tried to start up any conversation or do anything to pass the time as they carefully watched the Black Lion, not wanting to miss any sign that she was responding to the newcomer. But as the minutes stretched out, they started growing impatient. Pidge began tapping her foot, Allura kept breaking the silence with impatient sighs, and Lance was pretty sure he heard Hunk starting humming under his breath – anything to pass the time.

Right as Lance was about to suggest they start up a game of I Spy or Twenty Questions, Black’s jaw finally moved again, lowering to let her passengers out. It was obvious immediately that Black had been just as inactive inside as she was outside; Shiro’s brow was slanted in concern as he shook his head at the other paladins, and Keith had his arms crossed tightly over his chest again, his face looking just a little ill.

“So I guess that’s a dead end, then?” Pidge asked.

“Well, possibly,” Shiro said. “We’ll still have to test him out with Red.”

Lance’s brows shot upward. “Wait, what? We didn’t say anything about Red getting involved in this!”

“Keith said he believes he piloted Red at one point,” Shiro explained. “He may not have a bond with Black, but if he did in fact pilot Red in the past, there may still be a link somewhere. It’s worth testing.”

“It’s not!” Lance insisted. “We both know full well I’m the only one who’s piloted red in ten thousand years. There’s nothing to test.”

“I know it’s a long shot, but there’s no reason not to just check and see. It won’t do any harm.”

“But – ”

“ _Lance_.” Shiro met his gaze sternly, with that look of ‘parent about to give their child a lecture’ that he had somehow mastered despite not even being a decade older than Lance.

Lance sighed. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll test it. But if Red gets mad at me for pawning her off to some other pilot, it’s on you.”

“I’ll accept full responsibility,” Shiro said. He nudged Keith’s back, urging him away, and Keith stiffly walked to Lance and followed as the group moved to Red Lion.

Red let her barrier down for Lance, and he pulled Keith through, climbing into the cockpit and trying not to scowl as he watched the other man sink into the pilot’s seat,  _his_  seat. Keith closed his eyes tightly, putting his hands onto the steering levers beside the chair and letting out a slow breath before sitting still and silent, as if meditating.

Something flickered in the back of Lance’s mind, soon strengthening enough for him to recognize it as Red communicating with him. And he tried not to feel too much satisfaction when what Red seemed to be communicating was just general confusion.

 _Yeah, I know,_  he thought to her.  _You’re not big on guests. Just humor him for a bit, okay?_

With a breath of relief, he turned his own focus back to Keith, the slight smile that made it onto his face after talking briefly to Red fading as he watched him. Now that he wasn’t worrying anymore about this stranger interfering with him and Red, it was easier to notice the distress emanating from him. His posture was stone-stiff in the chair, eyes wrenched closed, and he was silently mouthing something to Red. Lance wasn’t great at lip-reading, but he was pretty sure his mouth formed the word ‘please’ a couple of times.

He watched and waited, giving Keith time to relent on his own. He counted to a hundred in his head, and then, for good measure, counted another fifty before finally deciding that it had been long enough that he should step in. Silently he moved forward and put his hand on Keith’s shoulder, causing the latter to jump in his seat.

“Sorry,” he said. “Did, uh – did you get anything?”

Keith turned to him, and as he shook his head no, his face was blank – hollow, defeated. Lance almost wished he would go back to the angry shouting he’d displayed in the kitchen; at least that was lively.

“Sorry,” Lance repeated. “That’s – that’s too bad.”

Keith sighed and stood up from the pilot’s chair. “Let’s just go,” he mumbled, leading the way out.

“Anything?” Shiro asked the moment the two of them were within sight again.

Instead of answering the question, Keith quietly said, “I think I’d like some time to myself.”

Shiro nodded, apparently correctly interpreting that response as a ‘no’. “I can take you back to Coran,” he said, “Get you out of that cryosuit, and then the castle’s got a lot of space to spare if you need to lie down for a bit, just get your bearings.”

Keith nodded and let Shiro usher him away. The rest of the paladins lingered in the hangar.

“So there really wasn’t anything?” Hunk asked Lance. “The Lions definitely don’t know Keith?”

“That’s right,” Lance said. “Red seemed just as confused as the rest of us.”

“We probably could have assumed as much,” Allura sighed. “I don’t know where or when or how that man learned all that stuff about us and Voltron, but…”

“But it definitely wasn’t from experience,” Pidge finished for her.

Hunk stared off at the entrance where Shiro and Keith had disappeared. “I kinda feel bad for him,” he said. “Really looks like this whole thing’s freaking him out more than us.”

“He could very well be faking that,” Allura pointed out.

“Then he’s a pretty amazing actor.”

Pidge sighed. “So we’re basically back to square one, then? Nothing’s lined up so far, so it seems we still have no idea who this guy is.”

“Guess so,” Lance said with a shrug. “But I can tell you one thing: whoever this Keith guy is, he’s sure as hell not a paladin.”


	4. Chapter 4

The paladins tried their best to keep their minds occupied by something other than thoughts of Keith. It should have been easy; it wasn’t as though there was a dearth of things to do. Even with the crowd of alien refugees dwindling down to zero as Allura got in touch with enough of their fringe rebels to them all shuttled out and started home, there was plenty else to keep them busy. The team was constantly doing repairs to the castle ship, the armory needed to be organized, Coran and Pidge had been taking it upon themselves to triply back up the contents of their computer network, and even besides that, there was no excuse not to be training or studying or helping with the castle chores.

But none of them could really concentrate on any of it. Lance had been assisting with the embarking process for the refugees, but afterward, he wasted a good deal of time wandering the ship, dismissing each possibility he saw for a means of passing time, deciding that he simply wasn’t up for it.

He eventually found himself in the paladins’ lounge, and it appeared he wasn’t the only one whose work ethic had been shot for the remainder of the day. Hunk and Pidge were there, a hand-made deck of cards on the floor between them, halfway through a game of Lance-couldn’t-tell-what. Allura, meanwhile…

“Is she  _asleep?_ ” Lance asked, staring her figure reclined across one of the couches. “I didn’t think she knew how!”

“I’m not asleep,” Allura spoke up without moving. “I am resting, while closing my eyes.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Hunk and I told her she ought to take a real nap,” Pidge said. “It would do her some good. But she’s stubborn as a mule.”

“I don’t know what a mule is,” Allura said, “But based on your tone, I’m going to be offended.”

“Good choice,” Hunk said with a nod. “By the way, Lance, Shiro was looking for you.”

Lance frowned. “Why?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Well, let’s find out,” Pidge said, and she turned toward the hallway, cupped a hand around her mouth, and shouted at the top of her lungs,  _“Shiiiirrrooo! We found Laaaaance!”_

“You didn’t find me,” Lance said. “I just showed up. On my own willpower.”

Pidge shrugged. “We weren’t looking that hard.”

Lance stuck his tongue out at her, and pulled it back in when he heard Shiro’s footsteps approaching from down the hall. “You needed me?” he asked as the latter entered.

“I did,” Shiro said. “You have an extra set of pajamas, right?”

Lance raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“Would you mind lending it out for a bit?”

“What for?”

“For Keith.”

There was a pause as the rest of the paladins turned to look back at the two of them, Allura sitting up on the couch to do so, all suddenly interested in nothing else but this conversation. “For, um, for Keith?” Lance repeated.

Shiro nodded. “He couldn’t very well keep wearing that cryosuit, and the only other clothes he’s got with him is that prison uniform. I’m not gonna make him wear that.”

“You didn’t insist on wardrobe changes for any of the other prisoners we freed,” Allura said with a frown.

“Sure, but Keith’s staying longer than the rest of them are.”

Silence again, before Allura said, tonelessly and with narrowed eyes, “We never discussed that, you know.”

“I know.”

“So…”

Shiro leaned against the doorway and ran a hand through the fringe of his hair. “I know we’re going to have to talk about the details and everything, but you can’t tell me there’s any sort of question as to whether or not he’s staying on the castle ship, at least for a little while. He’s over in one of the spare bedrooms right now – he, uh, he was pretty adamant that it was ‘his’ room.”

With a sigh, Allura stood from the couch. “Shiro, he’s not – ”

“Yeah, he’s not actually a paladin,” Shiro said dismissively. “I realize that. But we need to have him stick around to figure out who or what he _is_ , don’t we? Besides, what are our other options? We can’t exactly take him back to Earth, not unless we want to risk bringing the war back to our solar system – even Kerberos was much too close for comfort. And we’re not gonna just dump him on some other planet to fend for himself.”

“That’s not what I was going to suggest,” said Allura. “But we have plenty of other allies in the Voltron coalition who could assist him if he’s in need of lodging for the longer term. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with him staying around.”

“I’m not saying it’s going to be comfortable, I’m saying it’s necessary. We’re not going to learn anything if we drop him off on some other planet, and for this, I really don’t think we should risk not trying to figure it out. If we don’t let him stay, we’ll never get answers.”

“So we’re keeping him?” Hunk asked.

“Don’t phrase it like that, Hunk, he’s not a stray dog,” Lance said. “This is a human being we’re talking about here.”

“ _Half_ -human being,” Allura corrected him.

“Allura – ” Shiro started, but she cut him off:

“No, Shiro, we can’t just ignore that part. And honestly, don’t you think you’re being a little bit naïve? We know nothing about that man, and he shows up out of the blue, knowing far too much about all of us, and screaming at us that he was our teammate, and our damned  _leader_ , and now he’s insisting on staying here in the castle? We don’t know him, the lions don’t know him, and he’s not given us any real reason to trust him. He’s Galra, isn’t he? Have you considered that perhaps he could be a spy?”

“He was locked up in a Galra prison, Allura.”

“He could have been planted.”

“You know how much we went out of our way to make sure our prison raids didn’t have any followable pattern. They didn’t know we were coming, so why would they plant a spy?”

“Maybe they didn’t even have to know we were coming. The Galra empire has no shortage of soldiers; they could very well have plants in innumerable locations and this was one of them.”

Shiro was frowning at her, awfully irritated judging by the creases of his face. “And everything he knows about us and Voltron? Do the Galra give all their supposed spies these memories, or did we just happen to stumble across the one who they did?”

“I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean – ”

“And don’t forget the fact that he’s human, even if it’s just half-human. The only humans we know could possibly be this far from Earth have a connection to us and by extension Voltron. I’m not saying it makes him a paladin, but don’t you think that must have  _some_  sort of significance?”

“I don’t  _know!”_  Allura’s voice had gradually been rising to nearly a shout by now, her perpetual diplomatic demeanor probably the only thing keeping her from actually yelling. “But Shiro, this is all just pure speculation. None of us know  _anything_  about this whole situation, you included! Yes,  _perhaps_  he is trustworthy,  _perhaps_  he genuinely thinks we’re his friends or his teammates and he wants to reconnect, but it’s equally likely –  _more_  likely – that you’re making this man nice and cozy in a bedroom like a hotelier when we should actually be locking him in one of the castle’s cells before he starts sabotaging whatever he can get his hands on!”

Shiro’s teeth were clenched, and Lance slowly stepped backward away from him; it wasn’t often that he saw Shiro actually get angry, and on those rare occasions, it was a terrifying sight, no matter how restrained and subtle that anger was. “You have no reason to suspect him of anything like that,” he said, glaring darkly at the princess. “I understand wanting to be cautious, but you didn’t hear him just now, while I was setting up a room for him and trying to get him settled. He wasn’t asking about our plans or inventory or allies or lions or anything that a spy would be interested in, he just.. when I’d ask him about it, he would tell me about things he thought he’d done with Voltron – and he knew all there was about them, barring the fact that he thinks he was included in them – but he mostly just kept mumbling about how he wasn’t lying, how we’ve got to believe him – ”

“What, you think someone who actually  _was_  lying wouldn’t say the exact same thing?”

“It’s not what he said, it was – it was the way he behaved. Keith’s  _terrified_ , Allura. I don’t think he’s completely stopped shaking since he finished with Red. No, he hasn’t exactly shown that he’s a perfect loyal ally, but we’re not going to just declare him guilty and leave to him the task of proving he’s innocent. I know we’re at war, but this isn’t a road I want to go down. Are we just going to assume everyone we encounter is an enemy until they’ve assembled a bunch of concrete evidence to the contrary?”

“Yes, if they’ve been acting in such a way that raises far more questions than they can answer.”

“And if they’re Galra?”

Allura’s expression stiffened as she put her hands onto her hips. “I’m not going to pretend it isn’t a factor.”

“Of course,” Shiro muttered. “So even after we’ve worked with the Blade for this long, you’re still going to have us come back to that argument. You know better than that, Allura, you know full well Galra aren’t automatically our enemies.”

“Yes,  _some_  Galra are actually good allies, but this one hasn’t exactly demonstrated that he’d be anything of the sort. At least Kolivan has some sense of decorum – would you think so highly of him if he’d been here in the castle shouting and throwing a fit like a child?”

Shiro narrowed his eyes. “In case you’ve forgotten, Allura, when someone’s had the Galra army imprison them, abuse them, dig into their head and screw with it to their liking, they don’t usually come out of it completely emotionally stable.”

That gave Allura pause, and when she replied, her tone was still stony, but her face had softened ever so slightly. “Is that why you’re so eager to defend him? Why you want him to stay? Because you want someone around to relate to?”

“… I’m not going to pretend it isn’t a factor.”

With a sigh, Allura turned and sank back down onto the couch. She was silent for a few ticks, her lips pursed in thought, before she said, “He can stay the night. Longer if he doesn’t cause any problems. But in the future, Shiro, I don’t want you to make any arrangements for guests to stay in the castle without coming to me first to discuss it. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” Shiro said with a nod.

“And if this  _does_  end up going badly – ”

“Then I’ll admit you were right and you can yell at me until you lose your voice.”

Allura nodded curtly toward him. “I’ll hold you to it.” She took a deep breath and ran a hand across her face. “I apologize for, ah, for allowing my politesse to slip. This whole matter is… frustrating to say the least. It’s not as if there’s any protocol in place to deal with this situation.”

“It probably doesn’t help that we don’t even have any idea what ‘this situation’  _is_ ,” Lance said, and both Shiro and Allura whipped their heads toward him in surprise; Lance had a feeling they had forgotten that the other paladins were even there. “Anyone come up with any possible explanation? Because I’ve been flipping it over in my head non-stop, and the best that I can come up with is ‘God really enjoys screwing with us’.”

“Hunk and I had thought up a couple of theories earlier,” Pidge said. “But none of them really held water once we thought about them closely.”

“Still probably more than anything I could think of,” Shiro said. He made his way into to center of the room to seat himself on the edge of one of the couches. “You mind sharing what you guys had? We could at least use them as a springboard or something.”

Pidge shrugged. “All right. Well, we had three working theories that we bounced around a bit. The first one was, well, you know how you said you didn’t know what had actually happened to you during that time you’d gone missing, Shiro?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You think there’s a connection?”

“We thought there might be,” Hunk said. “Like, say, somehow some of the Galra scientists or druids or – or whoever was behind it, figured out some way to, like, take someone’s memories and put them into someone else’s head? And that maybe that could’ve been what happened here. We weren’t sure  _how_ they’d do something like that, but, you know, it would hardly be the weirdest thing we’ve seen happen out here.”

“The problem with that theory,” Pidge continued, “Is that, if this were the case, then Keith should only have memories from the time leading up to the point when Shiro vanished. But he’s mentioned knowing things that have happened while Shiro was gone and after he had returned. So it doesn’t line up.”

Shiro nodded slowly, face pinched in concentration. “Right. Okay, what was your second theory?”

“Alternate reality,” Hunk said.

Allura’s brows shot up. “You mean like those ‘Alteans’ we met on that ship? You think perhaps Keith is from a different timeline?”

“Yeah, initially. We’d thought, well, we know that rifts between realities exist and all, so maybe this guy came from a timeline where he  _was_ actually a paladin of Voltron, and he knew those other-reality versions of us and figured we’re the same people.”

“That – that actually makes a lot of sense,” Lance said, wrinkling his brow as he turned it over in his head. “What’s the problem with that theory?”

“Mainly: the butterfly effect,” Pidge answered.

Lance frowned at her. “The what?”

“It’s the idea that a small change in a timeline creates a ripple effect, changing everything that comes after it. Sort of a ‘for want of a nail’ situation. Keith seems to know about all the things we’ve done as Voltron, and how it all went down, but having an entire additional paladin on the team is a pretty huge change. There’s no way that everything would have still happened the same way.”

“Plus, you’ve got to take into account the changes that caused  _that_  change,” Hunk said. “Like, if Keith was a paladin and our classmate in one timeline, what happened to prevent that in our timeline? Did he not get into the Garrison? Was he never born in the first place? Did he die? And for whichever one it is, what caused  _that_  change, and why would that not have affected anything else in the timeline?”

Lance groaned and brought his hands to his face to rub at his temples. “My head hurts.”

“Yeah, quantum theory will do that to you,” Hunk said sympathetically.

“So what was your third theory then?” Shiro asked.

Pidge let out a breath. “Our third theory was that, maybe somehow something actually  _did_  remove him from our memories and Keith’s the only one here who’s got an actual grip on reality. But that one’s got so many holes it’s basically a strainer. For starters, how could whatever it was that removed our memory have been strong enough to mess with the lions as well? What situation could we have been in that anything could have even had the opportunity to mess with our memories? Why are there no gaps in them where something had been erased?”

“Why would we only have been made to forget one specific person?” Hunk picked up, ticking the questions off on his fingers. “If we’d been in such a vulnerable position that we and even our lions could have our minds altered, then why wouldn’t whoever’d done it take more advantage of it? Why let us carry on as normal?”

“Why would Keith be the one particular person that someone or something would want to make us forget? What purpose would that serve? There just would be no logic behind any of it. So we’re keeping that theory on the backburner in case somehow the entire universe went all Wonderland on us and it somehow slipped our notice.”

Shiro released a long sigh. “So, to sum it up…”

“We’re stumped,” Hunk said.

“What about that lab thingy in the prison where we found him?” asked Lance. “Was there any record of what was being done in there? Could we get any hints from that?”

Pidge shook her head. “I couldn’t get to any data. They had some sort of security protocol in place so that the prison staff could easily wipe the network storage if a security breach was detected. I’d assume they have a remote backup somewhere, but I have no way of knowing where or how it’s stored, so I wouldn’t stand a chance of accessing it.”

“Would you be able to figure anything out from the equipment itself?”

“Possibly,” she said slowly. “We didn’t exactly get much of an opportunity to examine it during the raid. Is that something that could be done, Shiro? Getting into the prison again?”

“It’s definitely a long shot,” Shiro said. “It’s likely the Galra has a close eye on the place since word’s probably out that Voltron’s been there. But we could see about keeping tabs on its planet system in case some opportunity comes to try and get back, see if anything’s left.”

“Sounds good,” Pidge said. She got to her feet and yawned, stretching her arms out. “Tell me I’m not the only one who’s wiped out. It has to have been at  _least_ a day since we last rested, right?”

“Feels like about a week,” Lance remarked.

Shiro gave the paladins a small smile as he rose from his seat. “I did promise that we’d get some relaxation in, didn’t I. Well, now’s as good a time to start as any. Go ahead and hit the sack, sleep in if you can. Lance? Those pajamas?”

“Right,” Lance said. “Come on, they’re in my room.”

Shiro followed him out into the hallway as the other paladins set to getting the lounge back in order before leaving for their own nightly ablutions. The two of them walked in silence to Lance’s room, where he went to the trunk he used for clothing storage and fished out the spare set of pajamas Coran had made him – blue as his official paladin-quality pajamas, but simple and cottony rather than the tailored and silk-like make of his primary set. “By the way,” he said as he passed them to Shiro, “Didn’t Coran make you extra pajamas as well?”

“He did,” Shiro said. “And they’re in my size. I’m pretty sure two Keiths could fit into them at once.”

Lance snorted. “I guess this is what I get for staying so cute and svelte all this time.”

“And I thank you for your sacrifice,” Shiro said. He turned to leave, looking back over his shoulder to say, “Good night, Lance.”

“Night, Shiro,” Lance replied. Just as Shiro was going out the door, however, he couldn’t help but speak once more, something else on his mind. “Hey, Shiro?”

“Yeah?”

“About Keith. You – you just kinda, um, seem like you’ve decided and trust him and all, so I just, uh, I wanted to know – do you really think he’s telling the truth? About knowing us, having something to do with Voltron. Like, do you believe him?”

Shiro paused for a moment, his mouth a tight line as he seemed to think it over before he slowly answered, “I believe that  _he_  believes it. For now, I guess that’s just what I’m focusing on. Anything beyond that, I don’t think I could make a call one way or the other.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess. It’s just…” He sighed. “I dunno. The whole thing, it’s just – it’s  _weird_. Isn’t it? Like,  _creepy_  weird.”

“I know. Trust me, I’m just as weirded out by everything about this as you are. But we’re not going to be getting answers right at this moment. Best we can do for the time being is try to put it out of our minds long enough to get some sleep.”

“Right. You’re right. Good night, Shiro. Again.”

Shiro smiled. “Night, Lance. Here’s hoping things somehow make more sense in the morning.”

Lance smiled in return as Shiro left, and once he had the room to himself, it fully hit him just how tired he was. He got into his own pajamas and made the difficult decision to, for once, skip his usual nighttime skin care routine; he was just that tired. He caught the lights and collapsed onto his bed, not even needing his headphones or sleep mask to nod off completely.

The last thing he did before falling asleep was to mentally reach out to Red, to bid her good night and, maybe on some level, reassure himself that she was still there. That nothing had changed.


	5. Chapter 5

Lance didn’t sleep well. Not badly, exactly – he could never claim that he slept _badly_ since he had Shiro for comparison, and he’d witnessed the other paladin thrashing and mumbling in his sleep in the throes of a nightmare. But not as well as usual. Normally, he could sleep like a log through the night, nod off to sleep within minutes and wake up right on time refreshed and rejuvenated. Last night, though, he’d found himself waking several times during the night, and struggling to get back to sleep afterward.

He wasn’t sure what it was that kept waking him. It might have been dreams, but he hardly ever remembered his dreams after waking up, and he remembered none from last night. Hopefully this night was a one-off instance. If the stress of war or something was finally starting to interfere with his sleep, he’d wind up with bags or dark circles around his eyes, or maybe even acne.

 _That_  would certainly give him nightmares.

The fourth time he woke, he checked the time and decided that it was close enough to his normal wake-up time that there probably wasn’t any point in trying to go back to sleep. He got out of bed, slid his feet into his blue lion slippers, and left the room, making his way down the hall toward the kitchen.

Usually Lance was the last of the paladins awake in the morning, but since he was up early this morning, Hunk was the only other person already in the kitchen, busying himself preparing breakfast for the others.

“Morning, Lance,” he greeted as he looked up and saw the other boy enter.

“Morning,” Lance answered. He looked around the counter at Hunk’s spread of fruits and baked goods. “Man, you’re really going all out this morning, aren’t you. How long have you been up?”

“Not that long, actually,” Hunk answered. “Most of this stuff doesn’t need much preparation. Oh, by the way, we’ve stored up quite a bit of milk from Kaltenecker, and guess what I made!”

“What?”

“No, you have to guess.”

“Wha – fine, um, a toaster oven.”

Hunk raised a brow at him. “Wow, you’re a terrible guesser. No, I made cereal! Those grains that we picked up in Hygaroz when we were in the Ulmenv sector, I noticed they were really similar to corn, so I decided to see if I could replicate corn flakes. I think I came pretty close.”

“Corn flakes, huh?” Lance asked. “That’s the cereal you chose to replicate? You couldn’t have done something a little less boring, like Frosted Flakes? Or maybe Cap’n Crunch, or Froot Loops?”

“ _You’re_  a froot loop,” Hunk huffed. “Beggars can’t be choosers, Lance. You haven’t had cereal in months, and this is the cereal we have. Take it or leave it.”

“Fine, I’ll take it,” Lance said. “Can I start eating this stuff now, or do I have to be all etiquette-y and wait for the others to get here?”

“Go ahead and eat. Just leave some for the rest of us.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Lance said as he reached across the counter to pick up an oblong, pinkish fruit that he knew tasted like a midpoint between a plum and a grape. “You’ve got enough food out here to feed a whole army.”

Hunk smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, guess I went a bit overboard. I couldn’t help it. We’ve had a long few days, we deserve a treat. And besides, the more options we’ve got, the more likely it’ll be that Keith will eat a full breakfast.”

Lance paused halfway through a bite of the fruit. He had nearly forgotten about the castle’s unexpected guest. “Oh, right. Keith. You think he’s even gonna want to join us for breakfast?”

“Well, he has to actually eat at some point,” Hunk answered with a shrug. “And when he does, he’ll have to come to kitchen to do it. So I’ve gotta make sure he’s got something good to eat when he gets here. Little guy’s just skin and bones; he definitely needs a decent meal in him.”

“You sound like my abuela,” Lance chuckled. “Every time I visit, she basically monologues about how skinny I am and tries to get me to eat an entire ham and a full tray of cookies within the first hour. I’m flattered that she’s so supportive of my upcoming Sumo wrestler career, but lord, it gets exhausting.”

Hunk laughed. “Well, I hope I don’t come on  _that_  strong. Wouldn’t want to scare Keith away. And speak of the devil…”

He turned toward the door as footsteps approached, but it was Pidge who came around the corner. Her hair was mussed and tangled with bedhead and she blinked tiredly, looking only half-awake, as she moved to the counter and sat herself at one of the stools. “Coffee,” she barked without preamble.

“Good morning to you too, Sleeping Beauty,” Lance said, smirking.

Pidge growled. “I’m gonna punch you in a minute here, Lance.”

“Why not punch me now?”

“Coffee first,” she groaned. “Huuuuunk.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it,” Hunk said, starting a pitcher boiling over a little stove. “You know, it’s confusing when you call this stuff ‘coffee’. It’s rabaga bean juice. There’s a difference.”

“It’s coffee,” Pidge said flatly. “Stop trying to shatter my happiness.”

“I’m just saying. You go to some alien café and try to order ‘coffee’, no one’s gonna know what you’re talking about.”

Pidge groaned again, slid her elbows onto the table, and put her hands over her ears. “I don’t care. No more talking until coffee.”

Hunk rolled his eyes, and Lance snickered, but they obliged her and left her to peaceful silence until Hunk finished heating up the coffee and brought Pidge a cup. “Here,” he said, setting it down beside her. “Enjoy your beverage of lies.”

“I will,” Pidge grunted, and she picked up the cup and took a deep gulp.

“You’re gonna burn your tongue, you know,” Lance pointed out.

Pidge shrugged. “It’s worth it. What’s a little scalding to a true coffee aficianado? Besides, my tongue’s built up a resistance; nothing short of literal fire will burn it.” She took another gulp, then set the cup back down and stuck her tongue out at Lance. “Thee? It’th fine. No burnth.”

Lance lifted his hands in surrender, but he smiled. It always amazed him how quickly the effects of coffee kicked in for Pidge. “Okay, fine. I admit it, your tongue is coffee-heat-resistant.”

“And don’t you forget it.” She continued sipping at her coffee, closing her eyes in relaxation, and only opened them up again when a new set of footsteps approached the kitchen. The three paladins all swiveled around to look, and this time they were rewarded with the sight of Keith.

If yesterday Keith had looked like a corpse, then today he looked like a zombie. He was still pale as ever, and although it seemed he’d bathed at some point, his hair was still an absolute mess, if less greasy. The dark circles were even more pronounced than they’d been before, and his expression was dull; it looked as if he hadn’t actually gotten a minute of sleep last night. His emaciated frame wasn’t as pronounced now as it had been in the cryosuit, but the bagginess of the pajamas left him looking knobby-limbed and small.

He took a step into the kitchen before he seemed to notice the others, and when he did, his eyes widened and he shrank back, looking like a schoolkid who had accidentally wandered into the wrong classroom. When he didn’t make any other move into the kitchen, instead hesitating at the entryway, Hunk broke the tension, smiling an almost natural-looking smile and saying brightly, “Good morning, Keith!”

“Mornin’,” Keith grunted back after a moment’s pause, voice flat and feeble.

“Sleep well?”

“Um,” was all Keith had to say in response to that.

Hunk moved on. “Well, I’ve made breakfast! I went a little overboard this morning, made a whole breakfast buffet, so you’ve got plenty to eat. And, as a little nostalgic treat, we’ve got milk and cereal! Want me to make you a bowl?”

Keith shook his head. “Lactose intolerant,” he mumbled.

“Oh,” Hunk said, and Lance noticed that his bright smile seemed to be growing stiffer. “All right, no problem! We’ve got all sorts of other stuff to pick from. These things here – ” He gestured to one of the trays on the counter, “If you close your eyes you can actually believe you’re eating an English muffin. And in this pan, this is actually  _technically_  eggs, so if you’re a fan of traditional breakfasts, that’s gonna be an essential.”

“Right. Thanks,” Keith said, still in that same dead tone. He picked up a little plate and a spork from the stack at the end of the counter, and he spooned out a single scoop of the eggs before he turned away and walked to the far counter, where he hoisted himself up and sat cross-legged on the countertop before beginning to eat in tiny bites. Lance noticed as he walked that Keith’s limbs were noticeably shorter than his own, since his heels kept stepping on the hem of his pajama pants; he had to fight back a wince at the thought of how badly they were going to fray if he kept that up.

He also couldn’t help but notice that the bright blue of the pajamas clashed horribly with Keith’s eyes and skin tone.

Hunk kept his focus on Keith as the latter ate his eggs, and his lips kept parting a bit as if he were about to say something, then decided against. It was a couple of doboshes of silence before he finally cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and said, “So, um… how’re you doing?”

Lance hastily turned a snort of laughter into a cough. All that preparation on Hunk’s part, and it was just to make small talk. Keith, fortunately, didn’t seem to notice Lance’s amusement. He simply kept his eyes fixed on his eggs as he replied, “Fine.”

“Right. Right. That’s, um, that’s good,” Hunk said. Admittedly, Lance couldn’t blame him for the awkwardness; Keith was giving him nothing to work with. “Are the, uh, eggs good?”

“Yeah,” Keith answered, and didn’t expand further on it before going back to eating.

“Lovely weather we’re having,” Lance said. “Got any plans for the weekend? Oh, who caught the game last night? What a match.”

Keith and Hunk both turned to him, looking lost. “Uh, Lance?” Hunk said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry, is that not the game we’re playing? We’re not just going through stock opening lines for small talk? That’s a nice shirt, where’d you get it? Wow, the service here is slow, isn’t it. What’s the deal with airline food? Taxes.”

Pidge laughed, spraying a couple drops of coffee onto Lance, who grimaced. “Geez, Pidge, didn’t your mom ever teach you table manners?”

“Of course not. That’s why I’m the fun one.”

Lance grinned and glanced across the kitchen. Hunk was laughing quietly at their antics, but Keith’s expression was unchanged, and when he met Lance’s gaze, he dropped his own back down to his plate. So much for Lance’s attempt to lighten the mood in here.

The kitchen remained silent for the next few minutes, aside from the quiet sound of chewing as they ate their breakfast. The quiet was finally interrupted when hushed voices emerged from the hall, and Shiro and Allura walked into the room. Based on the sharp and steely tones of their voices, even as they whispered, and the way they were glaring at each other, Lance could only assume they were in the middle of an argument.

Still, they cut themselves off as they entered the kitchen, both settling into convincingly pleasant expressions. “Morning, all,” Shiro said with a stiff smile. “Is this breakfast? Wow, Hunk, you made a feast!”

“Yeah, I did,” Hunk said, plastering on a smile just as forced as Shiro’s. “I figured, you know, gotta give our guest a good welcome, right?” Keith, who had looked up from his plate when Shiro and Allura entered the room, quickly dropped his gaze again now that the attention of the room was on him.

“Right,” Allura said. “Our guest. I’d actually like to have a conversation about that with you, Keith.”

Keith glanced back up, brow raised. “About what?”

“About the terms of you staying here in the castle.”

Shiro’s mouth had turned to a thin line; Lance figured the two of them still weren’t exactly in agreement on how to deal with this. Keith, meanwhile, bounced his gaze back and forth between Shiro and Allura, frowning. “Terms?” he asked. “You mean, like, I’m here conditionally?”

“No, no,” Shiro said. “Hopefully you can stay as long as you need to.”

“Well, actually – ” Allura began, but Shiro hastened to talk over her.

“Allura just thought that it would be best to establish some ground rules for you while you’re here. For safety and all.”

“I know the rules of the castle already.”

“That’s all well and good,” Allura said, “But we’re not referring to general rules of the castle or of the paladins. I think it is sensible that while your… situation is still being figured out, you allow us to put a couple of restrictions in place, for our own peace of mind.”

Keith expression didn’t shift as he slowly set his plate down on the counter beside him, abandoning what was left of the eggs. “What sort of restrictions?” he asked.

“To begin with, we feel it would be best if you were to avoid the lions’ hangars, at least for the time being.”

Keith’s eyes went wide. “What? Why?”

“Allura is concerned about maintaining the current status quo of the lions’ paladin bonds,” Shiro said, and the look he sent her made it clear that Allura did not speak for the both of them. “She doesn’t want to risk any outside attempts to bond with the lions to confuse or distract them.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Allura said. “I just thought it best to exercise caution about the matter. You understand.”

His posture had stiffened, face gone stony, but Keith nodded in reply. “Yeah. I understand. Is that all?”

“No. For safety purposes, we also would like you consider all armories and shuttle bays strictly off-limits. Those are solely for use by the current paladins and our rebel fighters who have over time earned the privilege of being entrusted with them.”

Keith’s fingers were clenching at his sides, curling into fists. “ _All_ armories?”

“Yes.”

“What about the weapons store next to the training deck? Like, the practice weapons. I can use them, right? To keep up with my training?”

“Actually, I think we would feel more comfortable if you would refrain from weapons training during your stay.”

Shiro broke in, “Well, I actually don’t think there would be any harm in – ”

“Shiro,” Allura said. “Do I really need to explain why I would prefer that we not give someone potentially lethal weapons until we are entirely sure we can trust them?”

“You can tru– ” Keith began, but he cut himself off when he met Allura’s stern gaze. He hunched his shoulders and backed further onto the counter. He was pretty good at that, Lance thought. Making himself smaller. Even in the short time Lance had known him, he seemed to be getting plenty of practice in. If Keith hadn’t been wearing his pajamas for scale, Lance could have sworn that he had actually shrunk.

“Right,” Keith continued in a mumble. “I guess – I guess you can’t.” He looked up again, chin high. “Okay, look, I get why you wouldn’t want me using your weapons and all, so, what do you want me to do instead?”

“What do you mean?” Allura asked.

“Like, for the coalition. The war effort. Even if I’m, um, not piloting a lion, it doesn’t mean I can’t help out. I’ve got experience with stealth infiltration missions. And – and I’m good with vehicles, if, uh, if there’s something I could use that for.”

Allura exchanged a glance with Shiro, who for the first time looked uncertain. “What?” Keith asked. “What’s the matter?”

“While we… appreciate the offer,” Allura said slowly, “We don’t think your skills would be needed at this point in time.”

Keith stared at her, then he slowly unfolded his legs to slide off the counter and stand up straight. “I don’t follow,” he said. “We’ve been –  _you’ve_  been trying to recruit as many people as you can into the Voltron coalition, right? So recruit me.”

“It’s not about numbers,” Allura replied. “It’s – you understand, of course, that those on this ship and those who report directly to it may be dealing with sensitive objects and information. So for the time being – “

“ _What?!”_ Keith interrupted, and for all the lifelessness he’d displayed so far this morning, a flicker of the fire the paladins had gotten to observe yesterday was making a return. “You seriously think –  _you seriously think_ – that I would, what, leak information? Use this stuff against you? Stab you in the goddamn back when I get the chance? I’m on  _your_ side! For fuck’s sake, I’m Team Voltron all the way! You won’t even let me  _help?_ ”

“I think that what Allura is saying,” Shiro said, “Is that, while of course we’re glad to have you here and help you out however we can – ”

“We don’t know you,” Allura finished simply. “And until we feel that we do, it would be foolish to let you into coalition business, in any form. And we are not foolish.”

“God, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Keith groaned. “So there’s just a blanket ban on all ‘coalition business’ then? Not sitting in on meetings and stuff I get, but what about – ”

“I said, in any form. A good rule of thumb could be, if you need to question whether or not you’re supposed to be going somewhere or looking into something, then you most likely are not.”

“So let’s get this straight. No weapons, no lions – ” Keith began ticking the list off on his fingers. “ – no shuttles, no meetings, no training, no helping the coalition… Am I allowed to look out the window, or would knowing what’s outside be considered ‘sensitive information’?”

Allura scowled. “If you’re going to be staying in the castle in the long term, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from raising your voice at me.”

“Ah, okay, no yelling, add that to the list! So what  _am_  I allowed to do, huh? Besides sitting on my thumbs and wasting oxygen?”

“There are plenty of recreational facilities in the castle. And if you’d really like to contribute to the Voltron cause, Coran would be happy to have some assistance with cleaning the med bay and maintaining the herbatorium.”

“Great,” Keith spat. “Fantastic. If a Galra fleet attacks, I can water their plants to death. That’ll show ‘em.”

“Keith – ” Shiro started.

“No, no, forget it.” Keith closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth, and then another, chest and shoulders rising and falling as he reined himself in. “Fine. Fine. You don’t trust me, and you’re not budging on it. I get it. I – I don’t like it, but I get it.” He opened his eyes, and the fire looked to be extinguished. “I’m done with breakfast, so, um, I’m just gonna head back to my room.”

He walked toward the entrance to the hallway, still sluggish as he trod on the hem of the pajama pants. “Are you sure?” Hunk called. “You’ve barely had anything to eat!” But Keith didn’t so much as turn to look at him, just strode silently out of sight.

Shiro immediately rounded on Allura. “You didn’t have to be so harsh with him, you know.”

“We agreed that we needed to establish guidelines for him to follow. I hadn’t even planned for a long-term guest to be joining us in the castle at all, but I allowed that for you; the least you can do is let me put some rules into place so that I can continue to feel safe and secure in my own home.” She stepped away to plop herself down at the counter. “Breakfast looks excellent, Hunk.”

“Uh, thanks,” Hunk said. “You can go ahead and dig in.”

“Thank you.” She grabbed a plate and began filling it. With a tired sigh, Shiro joined, picking up his own plate and piling it high with a variety of the dishes laid out.

“Hunk made coffee,” Lance told him. “Just, you look like you could use some.”

“It’s not coffee, it’s – actually, forget it,” Hunk sighed. “Whatever. It’s Space Coffee.”

“I knew it,” said Pidge.

Shiro offered them a little smile, but shook his head. “Maybe later.” He looked thoughtfully down at his plate. “Hunk, did you say Keith didn’t eat much?”

“Yeah. He had one scoop of eggs and that’s it.”

“Hm.” Shiro reached back to the counter to pick up a couple of fruits. “I’m, uh, I’m gonna see if I can’t coax him to have a bit more. Don’t need him starving himself.”

“Don’t be long,” Allura said. “We’ve got a teleconference scheduled soon.”

“I know, I know. So much for taking a little vacation, huh?” Shiro said, and he nodded to the group as a goodbye before making to leave the room, but he paused at the entryway and glanced back. “And Allura?”

“Yes?”

“I understand wanting to be sure we can trust him before letting him into the armories and such, but… go easy on him, will you? You’re usually so good at diplomacy. Don’t let that go to waste.”

Allura frowned. “Shiro – ”

“I’m just saying. I know we’re all gonna need time to trust him, but, well, I’m pretty sure  _he_  trusts  _us_. Just – if he does, I don’t want to ruin that.”

Allura’s face remained impassive, but, after a moment, she gave him a curt nod. “I’ll… keep that in mind.”

“Good. Enjoy your breakfast.” And with a wave of his hand, Shiro vanished into the hallway.


	6. Chapter 6

The night before a conference with a dozen planetary leaders from the coalition was a terrible night to have had difficulty sleeping. Throughout the seemingly endless meeting – the timekeeper on the wall of the room measured out three vargas, and Lance couldn’t remember how to convert that to Earth time, but he assumed it was somewhere in the ballpark of thirty years – he constantly found himself dangerously close to nodding off completely and would have to shake himself awake, barring one instance where it took Hunk kicking him in the shin under the table to get him upright again.

It wasn’t that the conferences were boring, exactly; more that they were mentally draining. Although all of the paladins had taken the time to study up on interplanetary geography and relations, they had barely made a dent in all they needed to know when it came to which planet was which, who was allied with whom, how trade systems on different galaxies worked, what embargos were in place, who had what resources, which planets had military forces, what types of governments and laws different planets had, all the important names to know…

If they didn’t have Allura on their side, Lance was certain the team would forever be hopelessly, embarrassingly lost. Sure, Shiro was always nodding along and focusing hard during these meetings, but Lance wasn’t sure if he was actually following everything, or just trying to look like he knew what he was doing. He didn’t speak up all that much when they weren’t discussing Voltron specifically, so Lance suspected it was likely the former at least as often as the latter.

In any case, his I-definitely-know-what’s-going-on face was on in full force today, and Lance tried to match it as best he could as he listened to the aliens on the different screens discussed the positioning of security personnel on trade routes that had been experiencing interception by rival forces. Allura had holographic maps up, with routes highlighted in clusters that looked to Lance like glowing bunches of yarn more than anything else, but which Allura was reading and manipulating like a piano.

Lance zoned in and out listening to the princess speak, searching out for names and places he recognized. “Our cargo line from the Griftsor system to the rebel outpost on Karimaw has been compromised, but now that we have a trade deal in place with the Yltraxians, we can reroute through their quadrant. There’s a tarriff in place on vulcanized esmerite if we cut through Theta-J-1-7’s orbit, but ultimately it would be less than the price of the fuel it would take to go around the rings of Yltrax altogether, so it’s worth the cost,” Allura would say, and Lance would understand some of those words individually.

The conference ran this dry for the majority of the meeting, until finally they reached discussion of recent activity in the battle campaigns on both their own side and the Galra’s, and Lance straightened up, back at full attention; this was the part where he could actually get use out of the information. They ran through an update on encounters since their last meeting – a handful of base raids by the Blade, transport vessels taken down by their rebel forces, the Galra attacking one of their armories and invading one of the moons of Qrandor, and the destruction of the public archives building in Olkarion’s capitol city.

Allura kept calm and composed, face neutral, during the full report, but at that last bit, her brow wrinkled a bit in worry. “They’ve been back to Olkarion? That’s… distressing. We had word a movement ago about an attack on Arus, and recently the Taujeerians reported signals of Galra activity in their vicinity.”

“There seem to be signs of planets previously liberated by Voltron being targeted through relatively contained attacks,” an alien on one of the screens said – Lance recognized him as Puigian, but couldn’t recall his name. “It would be one thing to work to contain the coalition’s threat to their forces, but strategically it doesn’t seem to make sense for them to be focusing efforts and resources into reclaiming old planets when they could be using those resources to continue expanding outward.”

“We’ll pass along instructions to our Blade undercover operatives to look into this as soon as possible,” Shiro said. “In the meantime, Ryner, what’s the damage on Olkarion?”

“No fatal casualties,” Ryner answered. “There were eight parties injured by the incident, two of whom were considered to be in critical condition initially, but all are expected to make recoveries. It seems the contents of the public archives were being targeted more than the people maintaining and accessing them.”

“That’s a relief,” Allura sighed. “Any other significant damage worth noting?”

“Fortunately no major research operations nor particularly sensitive material was harmed, at least not beyond repair. But the public archives do have historical significance, not to mention sentimental value, so it was still quite the loss. If you have the time to spare for it, I’m sure the Olkari would highly appreciate a visit from Voltron in a more ceremonial context. Never underestimate the importance of keeping up morale.”

The rest of the meeting was spent first on arranging for a visit to Olkarion within the next couple of quintants, and then on the status of and ideas for the public image campaign. Normally Lance would enjoy discussions on this topic, but the meeting had been running for so long by that point, they could have been talking about crowning him king of the universe and he _still_ wouldn’t have wanted to sit still for another minute of it.

He let out a long sigh of relief when the screens finally shut off and they were excused to get up from the table. Immediately he made a beeline for the kitchen to grab a snack, snatching up one of Hunk’s handmade fruit bars before heading out toward one of the rec rooms in search of fun. Around one corner, he bumped into Shiro, only narrowly avoiding splattering the fruit bar all over his shirt. “Sorry,” he said. “Wasn’t looking.”

“No harm done,” Shiro said. “I take it you were pretty eager to wrap up the meeting and get your free time in?”

“Was I that obvious?” Lance asked.

“You left the room at about a thousand miles an hour, so, yeah, I’d say so. You know, if you’ve got spare energy to work off, you could head over to the training deck with me. I was going to stop by the kitchen real quick, so I could meet you there right after.”

Lance smiled and nodded. “God, yes, that’d be great.”

“Excellent. I’ll be back in a moment,” Shiro said, nodding to him and continuing down the hall toward the kitchen. Lance finished his own snack there in the hall before making his own way in the direction of the training deck, passing by the open doors of a ballroom, the holodeck, the med bay –

He paused and doubled back when he passed the med bay, peering through the open doorway. Apparently, Keith had relented and taken Allura up on her suggestion of helping Coran with cleaning, since there he was, back to Lance as he scrubbed resolutely at the glass of one of the cryopods. Lance couldn’t help but pause, taking a moment to stand in the doorway and observe.

He was wearing another set of Lance’s clothes, jeans that were too long for him and one of the close copies Coran had made of the blue-and-white baseball tee that Lance favored (after seeing the garish designs Coran had come up with when he first had made the paladins new clothes to cycle through, the paladins had all decided they’d prefer it if he just use the clothes they were wearing already as a style guide with minimal alteration; the Altean had muttered something about ‘stifling his art’, but had nonetheless agreed).

Lance couldn’t help but feel just a little miffed at Keith. It seemed he had taken the fact that Lance had let him borrow his pajamas as an indicator that Keith was free to raid his wardrobe to his heart’s content. Sure, the guy needed clothes, of course, but the least he could have done was ask, even if just as a matter of social convention. Besides, blue still looked terrible on him.

As Keith moved around to the other side of the cryopod to clean, he finally spotted Lance, and jumped back an inch in surprise. “Um,” he said, “… Hey.”

“Hey,” Lance answered, and for a brief and uncomfortable moment, the two of them were silent, just warily observing each other. “So, um,” he continued, scratching uncertainly at the back of his neck. “What, uh, what are you up to?”

Keith stared at him for a moment, then he shifted his gaze first to the cryopod, then to the washrag in his hand, then the bottle of cleaner at his feet, and then finally back to Lance. “I’m auditioning for  _Cats_  on Broadway,” he said flatly.

“Okay, mister sarcastic,” Lance said with a roll of his eyes. “Just trying to make conversation is all.”

“Oh.” Another pause before he edged back to the cryopod and continued wiping down the glass. “If you’re going to just be hanging around here anyway,” Keith said after Lance spent another half a minute watching him in silence, “You could go ahead and grab another washcloth and lend a hand.”

“Oh, no, um, I’m busy.”

Keith raised a brow. “You don’t look busy.”

“Well, I will be in a moment, just meeting Shiro to, uh… to train…”

The expression on Keith’s face softened, fell, a flicker of something that Lance couldn’t identify flashing across his eyes before he simply said, “…Oh.” For a moment he stood in silence, chewing at his bottom lip, then he pointedly turned his back to Lance to resume scrubbing at the cryopod, more vigorously than what was necessary, as if he were trying to sand a hole right through it.

“Lance,” a voice came from behind him, and Lance whipped around to see Shiro approaching him from down the hallway. “You coming to train or what?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” Lance said. “Just, ah, got held up.”

“By what?” Shiro asked as he reached the med bay as well and looked past Lance, seeing the answer to his question. “Ah. Hi, Keith!” he called. “Morning going all right?”

Keith leaned around the cryopod to look back at the doorway again. “Yeah,” he answered tonelessly.

“How long you been working on the cryopods?”

“I dunno.”

Shiro raised his brow and gave him a soft smile. “So, all morning?”

Keith shrugged. “I guess.”

“Don’t suppose you could use a break?”

“Nah, I’m okay,” Keith sighed, returning his attention to the cryopod. “I’m okay. Go – go ahead to your training, don’t let me keep you. I, uh, I’m okay. Go train.”

Shiro frowned as he watched Keith work. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I get the feeling you’d rather be training than doing this.”

Keith paused his scrubbing, and then after a few ticks, resumed, expression unchanged, as he answered, “Doesn’t matter. Can’t train, remember? Allura’s orders.”

“Actually,” Shiro said slowly, “ _Technically_ , she didn’t put a ban on training altogether. She just said you’re not allowed to use any of the training equipment.” He shrugged. “There’s training you can do without weapons and armor, you know.”

This time after his obligatory pause, he turned back toward the doorway, eyes wide. “Wait, are – are you serious?”

“Yeah. If you want to.”

Lance frowned up at Shiro. Nothing against the new guy, but he had been rather looking forward to getting to have some one-on-one training with the black paladin. He didn’t get the chance to often, especially considering that it should be a fairly common thing for leader and right-hand man, so the times he did, they were, well, nice. Now a wrench had been thrown into the works, and it was too late to double back; there was no way he could uninvite Keith without seeming like a major dick.

Keith, for his part, hesitated. “But, um, Allura said that if I question whether or not I should be going somewhere, then I – ”

“Well, I think that rule leaves a lot of wiggle room for claiming plausible deniability,” Shiro said with a shrug. “Come on, kiddo, you want to spar or not?”

Again Keith hesitated, and then, the corners of his mouth turning upward by just a hair, he slowly nodded. “Yes. I do, just, uh – just let me finish up here real quick, won’t be a minute.”

“Uh, Shiro?” Lance asked, tugging lightly at Shiro’s shirtsleeve. “Are you really sure that’s a good idea?”

“It’ll be fine,” Shiro replied. “And if Allura finds out and has a problem with it, I’ll take the heat, no big deal.”

“Well, yeah, uh, that too, but I was thinking more, um…” Lance worried at his lip as he fished for something to say, finally settling on, “He’s kind of a twig? You spar with him, you’ll probably break him in two with one hit.”

“I can  _hear_  you, you know,” Keith called from across the med bay, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at Lance. “And you’re one to talk.”

Lance shrugged. “Maybe he could break me in two, too, if I wasn’t so great at defense. I’m just looking out for you.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine,” Shiro said with a wave of his hand. “I can pull my punches if I need to.” He paused, and then smirked over at Lance, raising his brow. “Unless you’re hinting that  _you_  would rather be his sparring partner instead? I suppose two twigs would be a better match.”

Lance punched Shiro in the shoulder. “I’m not a twig! You’re just a hulk. Your perception’s all warped.”

“All right, all right, I’ll take him. Seeing as you’re not up for the challenge.”

“Hey, that’s not it at all!” Lance snapped, and he turned back toward Keith. “Hey, Mullet! I’m your sparring partner now!”

“Um, okay?” Keith said.

Shiro gave Lance a nudge. “Go get changed if you’re gonna spar with him. Wouldn’t be all that fair for only one of you to be wearing armor.”

Lance nodded. “Right. Meet you at the training deck.”

He took off down the hall, reaching his room and getting changed into casual clothes in record time. It had been a while since last he had done any sort of training in day clothes; it actually felt kind of nice, looser, lighter. He stretched his arms and legs out a couple of times and then, satisfied with his range of motion, headed back out to the training deck, where the others were already at their marks, Shiro standing against one of the walls along the deck, Keith out on the floor, his arms looking thin as ever as he stretched them.

“You ready?” Shiro asked.

“Am I ever,” Lance answered, striding toward the center of the room and taking his position.

Keith met him there, situating himself across from Lance and settling into his stance. “We going for three-second pin?” he asked.

“Sure,” Lance said with a nod. He set his feet and lifted his fists into a starting stance. “Ready when you are. And hey, I know you’re still kinda convalescing right now, so I’ll go easy on you for the first couple of – ”

And before he even noticed Keith was moving, his legs were swept out from under him and he landed hard onto his back. After taking a moment to shake his head clear, he glared up at Keith, who had settled back into his beginning stance, looking perfectly innocent and for all the world like he had absolutely no idea how Lance had wound up on the ground.

“Don’t bother,” Keith said. “I think I can handle it.”

“I – I didn’t know we were already starting,” Lance grunted.

“Gotta be on your guard, Lance!” Shiro called from the sideline, and Lance scowled at him before replying, “I know, I know!” He finished straightening himself and firmly planted his feet. “We’ll count down this time, keep it fair, okay?” Keith nodded his agreement. “All right. Three – two – ”

He struck out with a fist before reaching ‘one’, but Keith ducked out of the way before it could hit. He glared at Lance – uncalled for, really, he had just been trying to even things out in regards to false starts – but he didn’t say anything, instead opting to dive right into the spar.

And, honestly, unexpectedly, he was _good_. He wasn’t packing much power behind the jabs or attempted holds he threw Lance’s way, but it was immediately clear that he knew his way around a fight. He was strategic and calculating even as he kept up a rapid offense, aiming for pressure points and keeping watch for openings and opportunities. His form also wasn’t perfect, as he still stumbled or overshot a couple of times, probably just still unused to fighting at his current weight, but he made up for it with speed and, especially, reaction time.

Lance grew increasingly frustrated as Keith dodged or blocked everything thrown at him, and seemed to catch every opening Lance left even if it was only for a fraction of a second. He gritted his teeth as Keith landed another tap on his left arm as he turned out of the path of the punch from his right almost before he’d even thrown it. They kept a steady distance, Keith matching Lance’s footwork perfectly without even looking down. It was like a dance in which only one partner had been taught the choreography.

In fact, that was  _exactly_  what it was like, he realized, and mentally kicked himself for having taken so long to realize it. If Keith remembered training with Lance before in his little possibly-fantasy universe, then he would already know all there was to know about Lance’s moves and fighting style, already had learned how to tell when he was feinting or where he was aiming the next hit. And the same couldn’t be said for the other way around.

There came a point when a hit to the knees and a push to the chest brought Lance to the floor again, and Keith was quick to press Lance’s shoulders down. He was panting hard, Lance noticed, a sheen of sweat coating his pale face, but he didn’t seem to notice. “One – ” Keith counted between panting breaths. “Two – ”

Lance brought his knees up and bucked hard, managing to toss Keith off of him, and the smaller boy wasted no time rolling back onto his feet, going back onto the attack with just as much intensity before, if not more, despite the fatigue starting to take a noticeable effect on him.

They lasted several minutes more, each getting one more almost-pin in that the other managed to break free of, before, finally, Keith overcorrected dodging a hooked punch from Lance, nearly losing his balance and giving the other the opening he needed to bulldoze him to the ground. “One – two – _three!”_ Lance shouted out, and Keith stopped his attempts to throw Lance off of him, instead letting his head collapse to the ground as he closed his eyes and caught his breath.

Lance clambered off of him and to his feet, and, after Keith’s breathing started approaching its normal rate again, he did the same, standing up unsteadly and then bending down to set his hands on his knees, expression unfocused as if seasick. Shiro moved from the sidelines and joined the two of them at the center of the training deck. “You all right, Keith?” he asked, brows pinched in concern.

“Yeah,” Keith said between panting breaths, not taking his hands off his knees. “Yeah, I’m good. Just – stamina’s not what it used to be, I guess.”

“If you’re not feeling well – ”

Keith waved him away. “I’m fine, honest. Just need a moment. I, ah, I haven’t done that in a while. Must have been going harder than I realized.”

“You really didn’t have to go all-out for this, you know. Don’t need you hurting yourself.”

“I know. I just, um, I wanted to.”

Lance snorted. “Wanted to what? See how long you could go before fainting?” Keith rolled his eyes.

“Well, hey,” Shiro said. “For your first time back on the horse in a while, that was really good.” At Keith’s raised brow, he continued, “I mean it. It’s pretty obvious you know what you’re doing a fight.”

Lance frowned and glanced between the two of them. “And, uh… any feedback for me, Shiro? I’m the one who won, so, if he’s good, then…”

Shiro smirked and brought up a hand to ruffle Lance’s hair. “Sure, Lance, you’re the universe’s greatest warrior.” Lance batted his hand away, and Shiro turned to Keith. “I think we’re gonna want to get you hydrated again. Come on, Coran’s got plenty of water pouches at the ready, and it won’t hurt to grab you something from the kitchen too.”

Keith finished straightening up and nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Excellent,” said Shiro. He turned and started toward the door. “You coming too, Lance?”

“Nah, that’s, uh, that’s okay,” Lance answered. “I think I’m gonna hit the shower first.”

“All right. Come on Keith, I’ll lead the way.”

He strode toward the exit, and Keith trailed behind him, but paused before he reached the door. “Hey, uh,” he said tentatively, turning back toward Lance. “Thanks. I - I missed this.”

Lance smiled at him. “Right. No problem.”

Keith nodded a goodbye and ducked out the door. Lance watched him go, letting his smile fall. There was a bitter aftertaste in his mouth from that sparring match, one that he couldn’t quite place, and he didn’t know where it had come from. He was feeling off his game, off-kilter somehow.

Sure, by the end of their spar, Lance had gained the upper hand, but that had only been after Keith had worked himself to exhaustion. He couldn’t forget that at the beginning, he had been getting his ass handed to him. He wasn’t the best fighter in the world, sure, and he’d had his ass handed to him before… so he didn’t know why this was bothering him as much as it was. Something just felt off.

Maybe he  _had_  been going easy on him, he thought. Subconsciously, that is. Maybe he’d thought he was giving it his all, but on some level had been all too aware that he didn’t really want to beat up a guy who looked like he hadn’t gotten a minute of exercise or a crumb of food in days, and had pulled his punches accordingly. Some sort of pity thing.

That made sense. That was probably it. Pity. That was probably why Shiro was going out of his way to be chummy with Keith, too. Just being nice and cheering him up a bit since he was down. And that must have been what had left Lance feeling off, too, reading that odd vibe on a subconscious level before the rest of his mind caught up.

Satisfied with that explanation, Lance left the training deck to head back toward the living quarters, deciding he’d go for a nice bath instead of a shower, just a little reward for a fight well fought.

 


	7. Chapter 7

“Hey, Lance? Can I ask you a question?”

Lance startled at the voice so close to his ear, and whipped his head around to see Keith standing behind him, leaning onto the back of the couch with his arms folded over the headrest, the only person in the room not in full paladin armor as they waited for the notice from Allura that they’d touched down in Olkarion and could start heading down to the surface for their ceremonial visit.

He kept himself from wincing at being the one addressed. He didn’t mean it to be callous toward Keith, but in the couple of days he’d been on the castle ship, Lance had learned that he was a very difficult person to talk to, when he actually talked at all instead of either making himself scarce or, when he was with the other paladins, simply hanging back and watching them with a silent frown. Conversations with him were tricky to navigate. It always took Lance aback when Keith would casually bring up information that he really shouldn’t have, or use the pronoun ‘we’ when mentioning something Voltron had experienced in the past. He himself had to watch his words too; Keith wasn’t good at keeping his feelings off his face, so when others talked to him and something bugged him, it would be immediately obvious based on his sudden frown or scowl or thousand-yard-stare, but Lance could never get a handle on how to tell when something was going to upset him.

At least this time he knew that they only had a few minutes before they would need to leave to the Lions’ hangars, and the other paladins were all in the lounge too, occupied with their own activities but still present, so at least there wasn’t a risk of having to deal with too much lingering awkwardness. “Sure, go ahead,” he answered.

“Does it bother you that your armor is blue?” Keith asked.

Lance frowned at him. “Huh? Why would that bother me?”

“Because, I mean – you’re, uh, you’re piloting the Red Lion.”

“Yeah?”

“And – and you’ve been piloting her all along, right?”

“We’ve been over this,” Lance said, rolling his eyes. “Yes, I am the pilot of the Red Lion. What about it?”

Keith let out a breath. “Well, if you’ve been piloting Red all this time, why don’t you wear red armor?”

Lance raised a brow. “It’s not about color coordination, you know. It’d be a pretty stupid system if the Lions just let whoever was wearing a particular color fly them and no one else.”

“But, I mean, Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro all wear the same color as their Lions,” Keith said slowly.

“Sure, ‘cause that’s the armor they picked. I wanna wear blue.”

“Why?”

“What, I gotta have a reason? I dunno, I just like blue, that’s all! Brings out my eyes.” Keith tilted his head and stared, slowly moving his gaze from Lance’s eyes to his armor and back again. “Well, the effect doesn’t work if you’re thinking that hard about it,” Lance snapped. “What’s it matter, anyhow?”

“Well, it’s just – ”

“And Allura wears pink armor. There’s no Pink Lion. Why aren’t you getting onto  _her_  about it?”

Keith scowled. “Look, it’s just that, when, um, when I was a, uh – when I was on the team, um, we had – our armors, they all matched our Lions.”

“So, I wore red?”

“Um, no, you still wore blue.”

“Thought you said that I’m supposed to have switched to the Red Lion at some point. Did I wear red then?”

Keith fidgeted in his stance and started scratching a fingertip along the thin threads of the sofa. “Well, no…”

“Then, uh, I don’t see what the problem is? Clearly in your little world – ” Keith bristled at the phrasing, but Lance went on as if he hadn’t noticed. “ – the armor and Lion colors didn’t have to match either. Why are you getting all worked up over it?”

“I – I’m not getting  _worked up_ , I just – I – ” He took a deep breath. “Okay, so, who’s wearing the red armor, then?”

“No one is.” Keith jumped at Allura’s voice behind him, and Lance nearly did too; neither of them had noticed her enter the room and approach. “Red was my father’s armor. Considering how he died protecting this castle and Voltron, doesn’t it seem to you more fitting to retire the armor in his memory?”

Keith’s face flushed. “Um, I – I – yeah, I guess that, uh, makes sense…”

Allura narrowed her eyes. “Is this another detail of our lives we’ve all ‘forgotten’, Keith? That the armor was in use? Who, precisely, do you think wore it?”

She needn’t have asked. After all, Keith probably would never have asked about it in the first place if he didn’t think  _he_  was the one who wore it. And the way he blanched as he took a slow step from Allura made it clear he realized exactly what she thought of that. “I, uh, I think – I think I’m gonna go see if Coran needs help with anything,” he mumbled. “Have fun with your parade or whatever.”

“It’s not a just parade,” Allura said as he turned and left, but Keith made no response, just kept walking until he was out of sight. Once he was gone, she turned back toward the rest of the lounge with a diplomatic smile. “All right, paladins,” she said. “We’re in place over our landing point on Olkarion, so we can proceed to the bridge and then to our Lions. Big smiles, remember, we’re here to raise morale.”

The rest of the team followed her out of the lounge, and as they moved, Lance found Shiro by his side. “What were you and Keith getting into it about?” Shiro asked.

“We weren’t ‘getting into’ anything,” Lance answered. “He was just being confusing, that’s all.”

“Confusing?”

“Yeah. The usual. I can’t be the only one who thinks talking to him is exhausting, can I?”

Shiro chuckled dryly. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s a strange situation. But it’s not so bad as all that. I think it just takes time to get used to him, and his whole, ah, state of affairs, and once you do, it’s not near as tiring.”

“Of course  _you’d_  say that,” Lance huffed. “None of the rest of us get the chance to get used to it. You’re usually the only one he actually talks to.”

Shiro shrugged. “Well, I’m also usually the only one who actually talks to  _him_.”

Lance winced. He knew Shiro probably hadn’t meant that to sound accusatory, but he wasn’t wrong; Hunk would often babble toward the half-listening Keith during meals, but other than that, all the paladins save Shiro preferred to skirt around him rather than engage. None of them really knew how they were supposed to approach him, and, besides, it wasn’t as though Keith was going out of his way to start conversations with them either.

“He’s really not so bad,” Shiro continued. “I mean, sure, he’s…  _off_ , I’ll give you that, but I don’t think there’s anything to really worry about with him.”

“Does he, uh, ever talk to you about, like, Galra-prison stuff?”

Shiro paused and the two of them walked in a pensive silence for a moment before he answered, “He touches on it. We both do. It’s not exactly an enjoyable topic, but, well, it can be good to get thoughts of it off your chest every now and then.”

“Hmm,” Lance said. He began focusing his sight a bit more on his feet than on Shiro. “You know, if you need to get stuff off your chest, it’s not like you don’t have other people here to talk to too. Like your teammates?”

He looked back up to see Shiro smiling softly over at him. “Thanks, Lance, but that’s all right. I don’t want to put that on you guys, okay?”

“You wouldn’t be – ”

“And there’s really not much to it. It’s not like we’re sitting down for therapy sessions together, just occasional little chats. It’s nice, to have someone else around who gets it without me having to say it.”

“Yeah, I bet it is,” Lance mumbled.

Shiro stopped walking altogether, and Lance turned around after a couple of paces when he realized the other paladin was no longer right at his side to see Shiro frowning curiously at him. “Lance, is something bothering you?” he asked.

“No,” Lance answered. “Why would something be bothering me?”

“You seem a little upset.”

“I’m not, I’m not. I just, uh, I haven’t slept well the past couple of nights. Guess maybe that put me a bit on edge or something.”

His frown didn’t leave his face, but he slowly nodded in understanding. “Okay. If you’re sure. Want to try some hot milk before bed tonight, see if that helps?” he asked as he started walking again.

“Yeah. Sure.” They reached the bridge moments later, and Lance let the conversation trail off there as they left to their separate lions.

They reached Olkarion and settled right into their roles as entertainment. Lance went through the motions of their presentation, the parade and the Lions’ flight show, not feeling quite as excited as the audience’s cheers told him he should be. Part of it, he figured, was just having a lot on his mind, but he also suspected that his enthusiasm for these shows as a whole may be starting to wane. As thrilling as they had been initially, he supposed anything could start to lose its sparkle after enough repetition. In any case, Lance was feeling weary by the time they made it to the food-and-mingling portion of their visit, and hoped that they didn’t linger on it for too long.

Olkarion was not Lance’s favorite planet for festivities. The food they had there wasn’t bad, and they decorated well, but socializing here was not as fun as it was on most other planets. It was a planet full of scientists, and they were always much more interested in hearing about the mechanical and technical qualities of the Lions and new technologies being implemented in the war effort than hearing flirtatious jokes and stories of daring adventures, and it got boring fast. Lance was far from stupid, and could always pick up the gist of conversations, but he didn’t share the enthusiasm for math and science that Pidge or Hunk had, or have nearly as in-depth knowledge that they did, so he would wind up in the awkward position of  _not_  being the most social one at the party, a very strange position to be in for sure.

He did his best, though, keeping a smile on his face as he made small talk, laughing at jokes he understood and grinning awkwardly at the ones he didn’t, and he didn’t make any outward sign of relief when Allura announced that it was growing late and the team should start heading back to the castle.

Allura chattered excitedly to the others on the way back. Apparently Ryner had introduced her to a team that had been conducting secondhand research on quintessence. The coalition had been for a while putting plans in the works to intercept one of the Galra supply lines, and if they pulled it off, they now had a group of experts under their belt to work with them learning all that they could about it.

She only stopped her enthused talking when they returned to the ship and left the hangars, to find Coran waiting for them. “You have news?” Allura asked him.

“Kolivan’s made it to the rendezvous point on Mayall’s Object ahead of schedule,” Coran said. “I can open a communication link with him now if you have time for it.”

“Yes, thank you, Coran,” Allura said. “And fetch Keith, will you?”

“I was just about to,” Coran said with a nod, and they parted, Coran heading toward the living quarters, Allura leading the group toward the bridge.

“We’re asking Kolivan about Keith?” Lance asked.

“Of course,” Allura answered. “It’s about time we see if someone outside of Voltron is in the same boat with him as we are.”

“So, what would that mean?” Hunk asked. “Like, if Kolivan does know Keith, does that mean we’re supposed to know him too?”

Allura pursed her lips for several seconds before saying, “I don’t know. I suppose we’ll think about that after we get our answer, won’t we.”

The paladins filed into the bridge to wait for Coran, who entered a couple of doboshes later, gently prodding a wide-eyed Keith into the room. “Here we are,” he announced. “Guest and all. Give me just a tick to set the link up and you’ll be good to go.”

“So, um, so Kolivan’s gonna be calling?” Keith asked hesitantly, looking uncertainly toward Allura.

“Indeed,” Allura answered. She crossed the bridge to take Keith by the arm and tug him along to her spot on the bridge, the center of the field the camera would pick up for the video relay, her hand on his shoulder as though holding him in place, angled so that where Lance stood he could just see their faces, both which looked uncomfortably stiff. “Be excited, Keith,” she continued. “We’re finally getting that corroboration for your story that we’ve been waiting on, aren’t we?”

“Um, yeah…” Keith said, and as he did, the bridge’s enormous screen came to life, displaying Kolivan looking steadily into the camera and at the group. “Paladins,” the Blade leader said in greeting.

“Kolivan,” Allura replied, matching his tone. “Good to be in touch again.”

“Agreed,” Kolivan said. It was hard to follow his gaze with his lack of pupils, but Lance was pretty sure he could spot just enough movement on his face to see him roam his sights among the paladins before landing on Keith. “You wanted to update me about something?” he asked.

Allura nodded. “We did. Kolivan, this is Keith, a… guest in the castle.”

“I see. Greetings, Keith.”

“Um, yeah, greetings,” Keith tentatively replied.

“We were wondering, Kolivan,” Allura said, “Whether or not you were already familiar with him. Whether you know him.”

Kolivan narrowed his eyes at Keith, who fidgeted under his gaze. “No,” he answered bluntly, and Keith’s expressioned was disappointed, but not surprised – more like he had already resigned himself to this outcome. “Is there a reason you think I should?”

“There is,” Allura answered. “Keith here believes that he is a member of the Blade of Marmora. He was certain that you could vouch for him.”

If that had surprised or confused Kolivan, he didn’t show it. He simply shook his head and said to Allura, “I have never seen this child before. In addition, we only include Galra in our ranks, as no other species can operate the empire’s military technology.”

“I am aware,” Allura said. She may have tightened her grip on Keith here, given the way he winced a little and lifted his shoulder as if trying to shrug her away, but her hand held fast. “He is of mixed descent. Half-Galra, half-Terran.”

Kolivan peered back at Keith. “He does not look it.”

“No, he doesn’t, he seems to take much more after his Terran side. Still, he seems to believe that the Blade – ”

“I’m standing right here, you know,” Keith snapped, cutting Allura off and scowling fiercely up at Kolivan. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not in the room. And I know what it sounds like, but it’s true. I don’t – I don’t know what’s going on, I really don’t, but I – I was a Blade. I swear it. I’ve had one of your blades since I was a kid, it was an heirloom. When Ulaz told Voltron about the Blade of Marmora, I came to the base, I did your Trials of Marmora, I passed. And I joined you, I was one of you, I – I went on missions and everything. I swear it, I swear on my life.”

Kolivan simply stared at Keith, face impassive. “You say you have one of our Blades?” he asked.

Keith flinched. “Well,  _had,_  actually, not have. I, uh, I had it on me when I was – when I got captured. Haven’t had it since.”

“I see,” Kolivan grunted.

“I’m telling the truth!” Keith cried. Lance had a brief déjà vu to the conversation the paladins had had with Keith after he’d first woken from the cryopod, and he decided it was nice to see someone else on the receiving end of Keith’s frustration for once. “Look, you guys are all about secrecy, right? Does anyone outside of the Blade even know about the  _existence_  of the Trials of Marmora?” Kolivan didn’t respond, which was enough of a response for Keith. “You know I’m not lying. It doesn’t make sense, I know it doesn’t, but – but it’s true. Please, it’s true. You’ve gotta believe me.” His voice had made a slow slide from angry to entreating as he talked.

There was a moment of tense silence as the paladins waited for a response from Kolivan, and then he turned back to face Allura. “I would like to speak with you and the paladins alone, if I may.”

“Kolivan?” Keith said. “I – ”

“I did, after all, plan to provide you with an update on my mission status when next I was in contact with Voltron. We have not yet had a chance to discuss this.”

“Of course,” Allura said with a nod. “Keith, if you will.”

“But I – ”

Kolivan’s gaze slid back to Keith. “I would think that a member of the Blade of Marmora would have the sense to understand when their presence would be better elsewhere, as well as an ability to follow orders from a leader. You do yourself no favors here.”

Keith’s face reddened, and he opened his mouth as if to respond, but no words came out. Coran was the one to rescue him, taking him by the crook of his arm and gently starting to usher him out. “Come along, Keith,” he said. “I could use a hand in the herbatorium. I think you’ll find the work quite fascinating.” Keith nodded dumbly and let himself be led along away from the bridge, and Coran nodded to the team before the door slid shut with an electronic hiss.

The others turned back to Kolivan after Keith and Coran were out of sight. “You have news?” Allura asked.

“A general update,” Kolivan answered. “I have overseen putting new security protocols in place at each of the Blade posts I have been to thus far, and we are working to ensure that knowledge of all operating procedures are strictly need-to-know. No Blade member should have any information regarding any base aside from the one at which they are stationed, and only those specifically assigned to base security operations can have full access.”

“Seems reasonable,” Allura said with a nod. “Are all your operatives being rebriefed on these measures?”

Kolivan took a slow breath before continuing, “The attack on our primary outpost several movements ago has been… distressing. As much as the Blade values its secrecy, we have always allowed a degree of free rein in regards to the flow of information between outposts and members. However, given recent events, I and my subalterns wonder if we should put more restrictions in place as to information availability for the operatives at large.”

“To what end?”

“We believe this may help to prevent any similar incident from occuring in the future. Our outposts have remained thoroughly hidden for centuries, but the Galra who raided the base seemed to have prior knowledge not only of its location, but of its layout, security protocols, and the general contents of our data archives. This information was not off-limits to Blade operatives housed at the base, but should not have been able to reach the Galra army. Not unless it was given intentionally.”

“… You think there might be a leak in the Blade,” Shiro said solemnly.

“I suspect it. Currently, it seems the most plausible explanation for how such information could have ended up in Galra hands. At the moment, an uptick in security and stricter clearance levels are the best preventative measures we can take, until we have been able to more thoroughly investigate the matter.” His gaze wandered past the paladins, to land pensively on the closed door at the back of the bridge. “This Keith of yours. The fact that he has knowledge about our organization is rather concerning. He is quite insistent that he is a former member?”

“He is, yes,” Allura answered.

“And he is really half-Galra?”

Allura frowned in thought. “Actually, we only have his word on that. I suppose Coran could run a scan on him to confirm. You think he might be lying about that?”

Kolivan shook his head. “Highly doubtful. Very few people would lie about being half-Galra if they were not. They are very rare, even accounting for the fact that census data is off due to half-breeds often claiming to be either full-Galra or fully their other species, if they can physically pass as such.”

“Why?” Lance asked. “Why would they think they need to hide their species?”

“Social stigma,” Kolivan answered simply. “The Galra empire considers themselves to be the superior race. A half-Galra is the result of a coupling between a Galra and another species – the Galra would have dirtied and themselves and disrespected their heritage by purposefully consorting so far below their station, and their partner would be seen as disrupting order and trying to snake their way into a level of society they do not deserve. Leaving their offspring to be the sum of the worst of each of them.”

Allura was the only paladin whose face hadn’t fallen to a grimace as Kolivan spoke, probably already at least somewhat familiar with what sort of prejudices were in place out here in space, but this was news to all the others. “That’s – that’s kinda messed up, isn’t it,” Hunk remarked.

“I do not disagree,” Kolivan said. “But, for the time being, that is the way it is. In any case, there is little chance of much social standing for a half-Galra, so most keep low profiles. The Blade itself has only a very few operatives of mixed descent, and the only half-Galra I am aware of being in any position of notability at all are – ” He paused, and his ever-present frown deepened. “ – are Lotor and his generals. He apparently makes a point of finding others like him to work under him, give them an opportunity to which they would not typically have access otherwise.”

There was silence in the control room as this information sank in. Allura and Shiro glance toward each other, Allura’s expression sharp; Shiro’s, worried. Lance knew what they were thinking, since he was pretty sure everyone in the room was thinking precisely the same thing. Pidge was the first to voice it. “You, uh, you don’t think that Keith might be…” she said slowly.

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Shiro said.

“It’s not exactly a  _jump_ , though, is it,” Allura said, crossing her arms. “No one here is reaching any conclusions that are not based on concrete fact. We’ve already known that we found him under highly suspect circumstances, that he knew too much and has tried to forcefully involve himself in Voltron and the coalition, and that he’s half-Galra. Now we can add the facts that he is definitely not involved with the Blade, as Kolivan has confirmed, and that he fits the profile of someone Lotor would want at his side.”

“Yes, but – ”

“You have to admit, Shiro,” Pidge cut him off. “It really doesn’t look good.”

Shiro sighed. “I realize that, I do, but that still doesn’t make it a certainty, and it doesn’t give us the greenlight to go torches-and-pitchforks at him. Kolivan,” He looked back up toward the screen, “Do you have any solid evidence to confirm that Keith may be working with or for Lotor or the Galra empire? Or can we still consider this to be speculation?”

For a moment Kolivan was silent, face unreadable as he met Shiro’s gaze. “Have you given that boy any information regarding the Blade’s current activities and movements?” he asked in a low voice, in lieu of providing an actual answer to the question.

“No, none,” Shiro answered.

“Good. Keep it that way.” And with that, Kolivan’s screen went dark.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait. Life got busy, and the chapter got long. But, hey, here it is now, so you get to watch the fucked-up-ness of this whole situation continue to escalate. Yay!
> 
> Also, one of my amazing readers wrote a poem for this fic! You can read it [here](https://justheretobreakthings.tumblr.com/post/174094071999/hi-i-wanted-you-to-know-that-i-enjoy-your-writing), and it's an amazing poem and this is the first time I've ever received something like this so I was in squee mode for hours.

There was a difference in the air around the castle for the next couple of days. A tension. It was obvious from the moment Keith came into the kitchen the morning after their talk with Kolivan to join the team for breakfast. Usually, although Allura may stiffen and he may receive a few awkward stares, they would resume their conversation quickly, Hunk would pull up a chair for Keith – they’d learned that if Hunk didn’t specifically instruct Keith to sit at the table, he would spurn it in favor of the countertop – and Keith would sit through the breakfast as a quiet but otherwise ordinary meal companion.

This morning, however, when the conversations in the kitchen trailed off at the sight of Keith entering the room, they never picked back up to their former energy. Allura watched him warily, while the rest of the paladins did the opposite, avoiding looking him in the eyes and trying just a little too hard to keep their voices light and casual and normal.

Keith noticed. It was obvious enough. Although he didn’t speak up about it, the look on his face, brows creased and frowning tightly and blinking curiously at each of the paladins in turn, made it perfectly clear just how aware he was of the change, and how confused. He couldn’t have taken more than half a dozen bites from his breakfast before he abandoned his mostly-full plate, set it beside the sink, and beat a hasty retreat out the door.

He didn’t join the others for either of the next two meals, although Lance did spot him rifling through the pantry at one point after lunch when the kitchen was empty, so at least he was eating.

It seemed as if there were a new unspoken rule throughout the castle that they were all supposed to try carry on precisely as normal, as if they hadn’t all collectively started worrying about the very real possibility that they had invited one of Lotor’s underlings into the castle as a guest. Of course, they only partially succeeded. Even though no one addressed Keith directly about this or were outright hostile, there was definitely less acknowledgment of his presence; even Shiro didn’t seem to be going out of his way to strike up conversations with Keith at the same frequency he usually did.

The only one who seemed to overtly be paying _more_ attention to Keith than before was Allura. Every Lance saw her and Keith in the same room together, or even passing each other in the hall, Allura would not take her eyes off of him for an instant. Keith mostly seemed to be trying to avoid her gaze whenever this happened, flinching and ducking his head as she stared daggers into him. Or trying to avoid her entirely; at one point, Keith had walked into the lounge, seen that Allura was there, and simply turned around and walked right out again without missing a beat or saying a word.

He finally broached the subject on the second evening after their Olkarion visit. Lance had been walking through the living quarters on the way to his bedroom, ready for some shut-eye, when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a voice in his ear.

“What’s going on?”

Lance jumped away with a tiny yelp of surprise, and Keith hastily pulled his hand back as if he’d been burned, and frowned, sheepishly, guiltily. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t, uh, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t scare me,” Lance snapped. “What do you want?”

Keith held that sheepish frown for another moment before he straightened up and schooled his expression back to neutral. “Like I said, I just want to know what’s going on. Everyone’s been acting… weird. And it just started yesterday, and – and I wanna know why.”

“Well, uh, you know,” Lance said with a shrug. “We’ve all been busy. Guess the stress is finally getting to everyone.”

Keith shook his head, obviously not buying it. “Seriously, if something’s happening, I have the right to know about it.”

Lance crossed his arms. “No,  _we_  have the right to _privacy_. There’s nothing for you to be concerned about.”

“Oh, come on, what do you think I’m gonna – ” He paused, and his eyes narrowed further in suspicion. “Wait, does this – does this have anything to do with your talk with Kolivan the other night?”

“Keith, forget it.”

“It  _does_ , doesn’t it? What the hell happened? Did he say something to you guys? What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything,” Lance said. “And if he  _had_ , then it would have been for Voltron ears only. Confidential.”

Keith winced, but he pressed on. “Look, I – I know things probably didn’t look good back there, I know Kolivan forgetting me too may seem, um, may seem kinda – kinda damning, but, um, but…”

“But what?” Lance prompted as Keith fumbled for words.

Keith took a deep breath. “But why does that change anything? From the start you guys didn’t know me, and if Kolivan doesn’t, then… I know none of you trust me, but why are you suddenly distrusting me _more?”_

It was blunt, the way the words came out, like he was asking purely out of curiosity or for analytical purposes rather than having any personal investment in the answer. There was something a little unnerving, Lance couldn’t help but think, about the tone in which Keith mentioned none of them trusting him; it was as if he had run out of bitterness over the fact and had given way to a tired acceptance.

Or he was sick of keeping up the pretense of believing that the paladins had no reason to be suspicious of him. Either one.

Lance stepped away, deciding that he really did not want to get into this right now, not when he was so close to getting his beauty sleep. “I dunno what to tell you, man,” he said. “I haven’t noticed anything. Could be that _you’re_ the one the stress is getting to. And maybe you just need to sleep it off. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

Keith let out a long sigh, but he obliged, dropping his head and shoving his hands into his pockets – blue jean pockets, when the hell was Coran finally going to make this guy his own clothes so he would stop stealing Lance’s? – before muttering, “Fine. Whatever. Night, Lance.”

“Yeah. Night,” Lance replied, watching Keith turn and trudge down the hall to his bedroom before continuing on to his own.

It was noise that woke Lance up the next morning. At first, muffled as they were by his headphones and music, he hadn’t heard the thumping sounds from the hall. Even when a voice started shouting, part of him still seemed to think the sound was coming from his dream, so it took him a moment to realize it had actually woken him up. For an instant, he wondered if something bad was going on, if maybe they were being attacked, but no, the alarms hadn’t gone off.

Then he identified the voice that was shouting, and he groaned. Keith. Right. Of course it was Keith. Throwing another fit about something and not taking a moment to realize that maybe the other residents of the castle were trying to get some goddamn sleep. Lovely.

He tried to wait it out, let his music drown out the noise. After a while, it seemed to pay off, since the thumping stopped and another voice joined the noise out in the hall – Allura’s, quieter than Keith’s, enough that Lance could barely hear her through his headphones at all. But when after another minute the shouting was still continuing, he gave up. He wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep now. With a resigned sigh, he figured he might as well try and see what the ruckus was about, so he stopped his music to listen.

“ – are you going to keep this up?!” Keith was shouting as Lance pulled his headphones off.

“You have no reason to be getting this upset over a few precautionary measures,” came Allura’s reply. “If you hadn’t – ”

“ _Precautionary measures?!_  Is that what you call it?!”

“I’m going to have to ask that you  _stop shouting_.”

“And  _I’m_  going to have to ask that  _you_  stop trying to treat me like a fucking  _prisoner!”_ There was another thump, and now that it wasn’t muffled by his headphones, Lance could pin it down better. He was pretty sure Keith had just either punched or kicked a wall. Hard to say which.

“That was not my – ”

“Yes, it was! I have not done a damn thing to any of you, you have no right to – ”

“I have every right to take preemptive measures to ensure that the paladins and myself are safe from any and all threats!”

“For crying out loud,  _when_  are you finally going to stop considering me a threat?!”

“When you stop  _acting_  like one!”

“I am not – ”

“You have been since the moment you arrived.”

Keith let out a frustrated sound that was half-growl, half-yell, before replying, “Well, then why stop here, huh?! Why not just toss me into the dungeon? Wouldn’t that be  _safer_ for you?! Better chain me up good when I’m down there so I don’t just smash my way out like the  _dangerous fucking monster_  that I am!”

“ _Stop that,_  I never – ”

“Yeah, but you want to, don’t you?!”

“No, I do not! Don’t you think I  _want_  to be able to trust the people in my own castle?”

“Bullshit, you’re just waiting for me to turn on you and prove you right so you can justify – ”

Allura’s voice was strangled and distressed when she shouted, “I have nothing to justify! And the fact that I am approaching this with caution does not mean you’re being treated like a  _prisoner!_  I’d think you’d be perfectly aware of that considering where we found you!”

There was silence out in the hall, and then the sound of stomping and Allura calling, “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere else!” Keith shouted back. More stomping footsteps, eventually fading away into an eerie silence.

Even though Lance was now wide awake, he stayed in his bed for a while. There was always that atmosphere left hanging in the air after a fight, the one that makes you feel like you’re supposed to be quiet and still and you’re not sure at what point you’re allowed to go back to normal. Lance had lost track of the number of times he’d gotten into a heated argument with one of his siblings and then was left with the burden of figuring out when it would be appropriate to unmute the TV.

He gave it what he hoped was a suitable amount of time before sliding off his bed and slipping out into the hall and heading off to breakfast. Thankfully, neither Allura nor Keith was in there. Instead, the only other person here was Shiro, seated at the table and nibbling at a bowl of cereal.

Lance slid into a seat beside him. “Hey,” he said.

“Morning,” Shiro replied.

“The shouting wake you too?” Might as well address the elephant in the room now and get it over with.

Shiro shook his head. “I was already up.”

“Do you happen to know what, uh, what they were fighting about?”

Shiro sighed. “It seems that Allura had Coran make a minor adjustment to the living quarters for added security.”

“Minor adjustment?”

“Apparently Keith’s door locks from the outside now.”

Lance’s brows shot upward. “Oh,” he said, not sure what else there was to do by way of reaction.

“Yeah. Keith found out this morning, and he, uh… he wasn’t happy.”

“Right.” He let out a breath. “Didn’t sound like he was.” Okay, so, _maybe_ the shouting earlier was a bit more justified than he’d initially thought.

He stood to get started on his own breakfasts, grabbing a couple of leftover pastries from the refrigerator and starting up the space-coffee maker. He had just started settling back in at the table when two heads poked in through the doorway, Pidge and Hunk looking warily around the room. “Is the coast clear?” Hunk asked.

“What do you mean?” Shiro asked.

“Are Keith or Allura around?” Pidge clarified.

“Oh. No, they’re not here.”

Hunk and Pidge both sighed in relief before they strolled into the kitchen fully. “Thank God,” Pidge said. “Hell of a thunderstorm this morning, wasn’t it.”

“Have they cooled down, do you know?” Hunk asked as strolled to the overhead cabinets and got two bowls down for himself and Pidge.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Shiro answered. “Haven’t seen either of them yet.”

“And I’m perfectly okay with keeping it that way,” said Pidge. “Now how strong is this coffee?”

With Pidge and Hunk there filling in the space in conversation, it was easier to shake off the awkwardness of earlier and have a relatively normal breakfast. They kept their minds off of the castle’s drama; Pidge and Lance had recently reached a stage in one of their video games that they’d been stuck on for days, so he was able to keep his mind on that topic for the rest of breakfast, simply debating strategies with Pidge about how they could try and get through the level.

They almost made it to the end of breakfast, too. They’d nearly had their plates cleaned when Keith entered the kitchen and their conversations trailed off. He didn’t make any motion to acknowledge their presence, going straight to the fridge instead, but Lance was still able to get a glimpse of his face. If the pink hue of his face, his red-rimmed eyes, and the fact that his features were twisted sharply into a snarl were anything to go by, it appeared that he had not, in fact, cooled down.

As if that weren’t bad enough, as he was closing the door of the fridge with one of the plum-esque fruits in his hand, Allura had to choose that moment to walk in. The two of them stared each other down for several ticks before Keith ducked his head and stormed past her out of the kitchen, bumping her aside without a word as he left.

Allura closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing into the kitchen. “Good morning, Paladins,” she said stiffly, and the others replied with their own perfunctory greetings. “I have some news. The rebel scouts I assigned to the Phetarix moon that housed the prison have reported that Galra movement has ceased in the area. Within the quintant we should be able to reach it and find out if there’s anything of use we can retrieve from the site.”

“That’s great,” Shiro said tonelessly. They lapsed back into that uncomfortable silence, no one making any move to reply or add anything.

Finally Allura sighed. “All right, let’s get this all out into the open. You all heard Keith and myself this morning, no sense pretending otherwise. So, yes, I’ve put additional restrictions in place. No, I don’t like it, but I do feel they are necessary. And no, I do not think I’m taking anything too far.” She stared pointedly at Shiro as she said the last bit.

Shiro frowned. “Look, I know what you’re trying to do here, but – ”

“ _No,_ Shiro,” Allura said. “I’m not arguing with you on it this time.” She walked purposefully to the table and sank into a chair to join them. “I’ve been perfectly obliging for you all this time, I’ve made plenty of compromises already in how Voltron can handle this situation. If events transpire that indicate that additional measures of safety are unnecessary, then I’ll relinquish them, but until or unless that happens, I’m not budging on this.”

Shiro hesitated, opening his mouth slightly as if preparing to say something, then dropping it closed again and heaving out a long sigh through his nose. “What Kolivan said really got to you, didn’t it,” he said.

“It’s not just that,” Allura said. “Shiro, we have enough on our plate as it is without having to take the time to find the perfect solution to this – this – debacle. Having less reason to worry about the goings-on within the castle can only be a weight off of our shoulders. I’m just – I’m tired, Shiro. I’m trying to simplify things, but it’s nearly an impossible task. So please, just this once, don’t try to make this another battle. I’ve had enough of them.”

Quiet again, and then Pidge slowly leaned over toward Allura. “Hey,” she said. “I get it. We’re all stressed. But you don’t need to worry yourself about it this much about it, okay? We – we’ve got your back. You don’t need to spread yourself this thin for our sake.”

“I’ve not been spreading myself thin.”

“Yeah, you kinda have been,” Hunk said. “Just, you know, if you need to take it easy, well, the rest of us care about our safety too. We’re not going to do anything reckless about this whole thing.”

“And plus,” Lance said. “It’s not like Keith could possibly be _that_ big of a threat, right? If he tries messing with the castle at all, Pidge and Coran can nail him before he could ever do any damage, and I’ve already found out I can take him in a fight, so you can bet we don’t need to worry about going up against any sort of super soldier anything. We’re okay.”

He didn’t catch Shiro’s warning look as he spoke, and it wasn’t until after he’d finished, and Allura stiffened and narrowed his eyes at him, that he realized with a jolt what he’d just said. “What do you mean?” Allura asked in a low voice. “How did you find out you could take him in a fight?”

“Um, I – I just, uh, I – ” Lance stammered.

“Has Keith _attacked_ you? Why did you not tell me this?!”

He shook his head rapidly. “No, no, that’s not it, he – I didn’t, like, _fight_ -fight him, just, uh…”

“Just _what?”_

Lance sank an inch down into his chair. “… Just sparring,” he mumbled.

Allura stared at him, then slowly her face fell to a cold fury. “Lance,” she said, “Are you _out of your mind_?”

“Look, it was just a little training thing, I didn’t – ”

“Did I not make it _expressly clear_ that I did not want that man on our training deck? That I did not want to give him access to weapons or our fighting strategies or areas of the castle where he could very easily cause harm?”

“Allura – ” Shiro spoke up.

She barreled right past Shiro’s interruption. “What were you _thinking?_ We have been trying to exercise caution in this matter, we’ve all witnessed his volatility, and yet you deliberately put him in a position to be able to attack you without consequence?! Not to mention you _blatantly_ undermined me; how can I expect to receive a sliver of respect for my authority when even my own paladins – ”

“Allura!”

She rounded on Shiro. “What?”

“You never said he couldn’t train, period,” Shiro said. “You said he couldn’t use weapons. And he didn’t.”

Allura bristled. “The spirit of the rule made it perfectly clear that – ”

“Well, I was going by the letter of the rule, not the spirit. And I’m the one who okayed it, not Lance, so if you’re going to get mad at someone, get mad at me.”

Lance braced himself, ready for Allura to explode. To his surprise, though, she didn’t. Instead, after several ticks of glaring at Shiro, she simply sank into her chair. “I am so tired of fighting you on this, Shiro,” she said, and there was a wobble in her voice that perturbed Lance, that didn’t sound like it should belong to her.

Shiro was staring at her too, looking just as surprised by this turn of events as Lance. “What are you – ?”

“I’m trying my best, I truly am,” she continued. “Do you think I’m not aware that I’ve been appearing harsh? Do you think I’m trying to keep this castle secure just for the fun of it? I’m not happy about this either, Shiro! I’m not doing anything out of vindiction or malice, I’m not trying to make things difficult.”

“No one’s saying that you are,” Shiro said.

“You don’t have to. You’ve said enough.” She let out a long sigh and slid her hands upward so they were cradling her forehead. “And I know you seem to have been growing fond of him for whatever reason, but Shiro, you _have_ to put that aside for long enough to realize that we are in no position to trust blindly. We’ve had a direct attack on the castle. The Blade of Marmora, the most secretive circle of trust I have ever witnessed, may have had one of their own turn traitor. Every varga there is another political upset in the Galra empire or in our coalition. We’re – we are vulnerable.”

She took another shaky breath before continuing. “Keith is… unprecedented. I don’t know whether him knowing so much about us and believing himself to be part of Voltron is reason for us to place our confidence in him, or reason to be extremely concerned for how effective a saboteur he could be. And I can’t take the chance of it being the latter. I can’t. The possible consequences simply outweigh all else here. Shiro, ten thousand years ago the people in this castle trusted someone they shouldn’t have, and I will not risk making the same mistake. This is important, Shiro. All I’m asking is that you actually give me your support.”

“… I see,” Shiro said after a pause. He looked up at the other paladins. “Do you, uh, do you mind giving us some privacy?”

“Right,” said Hunk, the first to rise hastily out of chair. He took both Pidge and Lance by the arm and ushered them away as well. Tersely they walked out of the kitchen, and Hunk kept leading them along until they rounded a corner, taking them out of earshot of the open doorway. The moment he let go of their arms, Pidge pressed her ear against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut in concentration.

“What are you doing?” Hunk asked.

“Trying to listen,” Pidge hissed. “Come on, Allura, you were shouting this morning, go back to that.”

Lance nudged her arm. “C’mon, Pidge, let’s leave it alone.”

“You’re not curious about what they’re saying?”

“I am, but those two will tear us to pieces if they figure out we’re spying on them.”

“Yeah, and I don’t really want to make a habit of listening in on Allura’s arguments,” said Hunk.

Pidge huffed. “All right, fine. But for the record, we didn’t ‘listen in’ on that first fight. I’m pretty sure every being in the solar system could hear that one. And this seems like it’s gonna be pretty relevant to Voltron, so shouldn’t we be in the loop?”

“We’ll talk to them about it later,” Lance said. “Once things are calm.”

“Fine,” she grunted again. “But it’d better be soon.”

Unfortunately for Pidge, it was not soon. The other paladins didn’t catch so much as a glimpse of Allura or Shiro anywhere for the rest of the morning, so they never got an opportunity to confront either of them and ask questions. In fact, it wasn’t until Coran announced over the paging system that they’d arrived at their destination and should join him in the bridge to brief. Even then, Shiro and Allura were the last two to arrive, together, so the others had no time available to talk to them.

Someone must have informed Keith about what was going on, since he had come out of hiding was there in the bridge too, although he hovered in the far back corner of the room, as far away from the others as he could get, and kept his arms tightly crossed and a steady glare on his face. Allura appeared to spot Keith when she made it halfway across the room, since that was the point where her expression stiffened and her gait slowed. “Keith,” she said with a brusque nod, as close a facsimile to civility as Keith could have hoped for.

“Princess,” he replied, spitting out the word as if it was the most scathing insult in his vocabulary. Allura continued on her way, joining Coran at the front of the room and clearing her throat to command attention before laying out how they were going to approach this. Lance watched her and Shiro all the while, trying to gauge from their faces where they stood in regards to each other, but neither was giving anything away.

Pidge and Lance were given the task of scouting out the area in their lions, under the logic that as Red was the fastest and Green had her cloaking ability, those two were the ones who could most easily make a quick getaway if their information had been incorrect and there was still enemy activity in the area.

The moons of Phetarix were unwieldy ones to navigate. The surface was free from vegetation, all rocky and craggy and a layer of the same gray-brown dirt covering everything in sight. They were mountainous and crater-filled, and their topography was littered with caves and canyons and ridges and outcroppings. Pidge had mentioned last time they were there that the shapes of some of these formations meant that there used to be a lot of moving bodies of water on this moon, but if there had been, they had long since dried up.

The terrain, the team believed, was what had drawn the Galra to it as a good site to build a prison in the first place. There were few places for crafts to land, there was no way a prisoner could survive long if they tried escaping on foot, and the uneven, jagged landscape allowed a dully-colored building to blend in seamlessly.

They descended in the same area that they had on their first trip here, the vicinity of the less-than precise coordinates and the point where a birds-eye view was no longer viable. Pidge, it seemed, remembered exactly where they had located the prison last time, since she immediately set off to follow the path of one of the canyons with total confidence. Lance followed her.

After a few minutes of flying, though, he started to wonder if maybe Pidge didn’t know where she was going after all. The Green lion paused as it reached a dead end at a box canyon, then she turned around and went back the way the came, taking a different path in a fork than she had before. Lance went along, growing gradually impatient as Pidge searched, occasionally flying Green back up into the sky for a larger range of the sky and then descending again, positive that she now knew where they were supposed to go.

It wasn’t until they wound up once again in the first box canyon they’d hit and Pidge muttered a colorful string of oaths into the comm that Lance finally spoke up. “Pidge? Are we lost?”

 _“No!”_ she said. _“We’re not!”_

 _“Pidge?”_ Shiro’s voice came in through the comms, back from the group still stationed at the castle, observing as mission control. _“Is something wrong? You should have reached the prison by now.”_

 _“I know that!”_ Pidge answered. _“What do you think I’m trying to do?”_

“Uh, did we take any notes last time about where to find this place?”

Pidge huffed into her comm. _“I_ know _where to find it, I went exactly the same way I did before. The prison is supposed to be_ right here _. Why the hell isn’t it here?”_

“Did we get the coordinates wrong or something?”

 _“These are the exact same coordinates we used the first time we came to this prison,”_ Allura said.

Lance frowned. “Well, then, maybe Pidge navigated us to the wrong spot?”

_“Lance, if you ever dare to question my navigation skills again, I’ll navigate my foot onto a direct course right into your – ”_

“Okay, well then, what is…” He trailed off as he stared thoughtfully at the canyon walls as he flew by them, looking for anything recognizable or anything to indicate where they had gotten off course, but it was nothing but rocks and stale, dead air as far as he could see.

It wasn’t until he pulled Red back upward for a better birdseye view of the place that he noticed something. The size and shape of the box canyon seemed… familiar. And the canyon walls seemed too neatly carved to have been made by fissures and erosions. If they really had gotten the coordinates right, then…

 _“Holy shit,”_ Pidge whispered into her comm. Apparently the conclusion had hit her at the same time it had Lance.

 _“Pidge?”_ Shiro said. _“What is it?”_

_“I think we just figured out where the prison is.”_

_“Where?”_

Lance swallowed. “Uh, Shiro, it turns out we’re in the right spot after all. It’s just that, uh, there’s, um – ”

_“There’s what?”_

_“There’s nothing here,”_ Pidge said.

_“What? The prison’s empty?”_

“No,” Lance said. “There is _nothing here_. The prison’s not empty, it’s _gone_.”

No reply from anyone at the castle, and Lance didn’t blame them. He was the one who’d said it out loud, and even he still wasn’t sure whether it was all just some sort of big, weird mistake. They all needed a bit of time to wrap their heads around it.

 _“What?!”_ Allura finally cried.

“It’s gone,” Lance repeated. “There’s just a whole big space where the prison’s supposed to be. The entire thing’s just… gone.”

There was silence from mission control for a long moment before Shiro slowly asked, _“Are you sure?”_

“ _No, Shiro,”_ Pidge snapped. “ _We still haven’t checked under these rocks, or the dirt. We probably just misplaced it. You know how we’re in the habit of_ losing entire buildings.”

“ _Pidge,”_ Shiro groaned, _“I don’t need this right now.”_

Keith hesitantly spoke up then for the first time. _“It’s – it’s gone? All of it? There’s… nothing left?”_

“Nothing,” Lance said. “Sorry, man.”

_“But – but – how?!”_

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

 _“God, they didn’t even leave a trace,”_ Pidge muttered. _“This is so creepy. How the fuck…?”_

“So, uh, Shiro?” Lance asked. “What do we do now? Like, in terms of finding out what was – I mean, this is kind of a dead end.”

Shiro sighed. _“I guess for now, you should just… come back to the castle? We’ll come up with something.”_

 _“With what?”_ Pidge asked.

_“I don’t know, just, something.”_

_“Well, hey, not a total loss, right?”_ Hunk piped up, the optimism in his voice sounding forced and tentative. _“I mean, sure, we didn’t find any of the lab stuff, but it’s not like we learned nothing.”_

“What do you mean?” Lance asked.

_“I mean, now we know that whatever was going on there was something big enough for the Galra to be pretty desperate to keep hidden. Making an entire prison disppear without a trace? That seems like drastic measures to me.”_

_“Forget drastic,”_ said Pidge. _“This is more, I’m getting rid of this thing, and fuck any law of physics that tries to get in my way. Seriously, this is weird.”_

“Still doesn’t tell us much.”

 _“Yeah. I know,”_ said Hunk. _“But at least it’s_ something _, right?”_

Lance stared down at the ground through Red’s front window, the ground that had so recently held scores of cells and hundreds of prisoners, and labs and security bots and a cruiser hangar, and now was home to nothing but dust and silence. Hunk was right; that was way too extreme not to mean something. But for the life of him he couldn’t fathom what that something could possibly be.

 _“Lance?”_ Pidge said, and Lance shook his head back into focus.

“Yeah?”

_“Wanna fly back now? I just – I dunno, it feels like we’re flying around in a giant grave or something.”_

Lance swallowed and nodded, and then, remembering that they didn’t have video communication on, said, “Yeah, sounds good.” He turned Red around and began speeding back toward the castle, Green trailing behind him, and resenting the fact that they now had added yet another bewildering, frustrating, ominous puzzle piece to the ever-growing headache-inducing mystery that was Keith.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, the events that occur in chapters 7 through 10 of this story were supposed to fit into only three chapters, but things got away from me. I ended up needing to include more than I expected. I have a good portion of chapter 10 written up, and my goal is to get it posted before the new season drops. Can I pull it off? We'll see. I'm aiming high, friends.

The paladins, and Keith, had gathered in the lounge after the less-than-successful attempt at infiltrating what used to be the prison, but to what purpose, they didn’t know. Usually when they all gathered together in the lounge after a mission, it was to debrief and discuss what they had accomplished, where they had messed up, and what they were going to do next. This time, though, none of them knew the answers to any of that; the “mission” had just been too baffling.

Pidge and Hunk had halfheartedly tried to theorize at first, but they gave that up quickly when neither of them could come up with anything even in the realm of possibility, and then they, like the other paladins, simply sat silently, stewing in their own thoughts.

The only one not sitting and stewing was Keith, who had taken to pacing instead. Back and forth along one of the walls, a feverish look in his eyes. Lance was pretty sure he caught his lips moving, so he may have been muttering to himself as well, but he was too far away to hear his voice. He could, however, hear his footsteps perfectly, and they grew more and more grating the longer they were the only sound in the otherwise still and silent lounge.

“Would you knock it off?” Lance finally snapped at him after he had listened to the footfalls for so long he was pretty sure they would still be echoing in his head a week from now. “You’re gonna wear a hole right through the floor.”

Keith scowled over at him. “I’m thinking,” he said.

“Well, do like the rest of us and think while you’re on your ass, all right? I’m getting a migraine.”

“Lance, leave it,” Shiro sighed.

“Oh come on, Shiro, don’t tell me it’s not annoying you too.”

“Well…”

“All right, fine,” Keith said. He moved to the rest of the paladins and plopped himself down, in the middle of the long three-seater couch, right between Lance and Allura. Lance grunted in approval, and Allura edged away so she was squeezed up right against the armrest. “Happy?”

“Over the moon,” Lance said. Keith crossed his arms and glared straight ahead of him, and they sat in a tense, awkward silence for far too long for Lance’s liking before Coran entered the room, back from wherever he had run off to as Lance and Pidge had been flying back to the castle.

Allura sat up straighter at his entrance. “Figure out anything?” she asked.

Coran shook his head. “I’ve run a search on our information database, but I didn’t find anything. There still could be something there, though; I really wasn’t sure what keywords to use. I can comb through it some more later. I also messaged Ryner, asked if she or any of her researchers know of any similar phenomena that we could use as a reference point to look into. Haven’t heard back from her yet, though.”

With a sigh, Allura sank back into the couch. “Right. I suppose that is to be expected. Is Ryner our only possible lead right now?”

“I got in touch with Slav as well. Told him what happened here with the prison, so we could see if he had any insights.”

“And what’d he say?” Allura asked.

“He said that there were fourteen realities in which accepting a video call from me resulted in him being electrocuted to death, and he was three percent certain this reality was one of them, so I shouldn’t call him unless it’s an emergency. I told him this  _is_  an emergency, and he either recited a chemical formula with a few made-up elements or rattled off some very newfangled swears, and hung up on me.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Slav,” Lance said with a nod.

“So, we’re still clueless?” Hunk asked.

Coran nodded solemnly. “For the time being, I’m afraid so. Still, we’ve not had all that long to look into it, so there’s still plenty of time for some information to come to light.”

“Well, in any case, we’re probably not going to solve anything right now,” Shiro sighed, climbing onto his feet. “Just having to think about it this much has worn me out. Maybe sleeping on it could help?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Hunk said with a nod.

“Yes, yes, you all get some rest,” Coran said. “I’ll continue looking through the database, and I’ll let you know in the morning if I have any new findings. Oh, Number Four?”

“Yeah?” Keith and Pidge both replied at once. They swiveled to look at each other, and then Keith sank sheepishly into the couch. “Right, sorry,” he mumbled. “I forgot.”

Coran cleared his throat and tugged at his collar. “Er, I only was going to ask if you’d be interested in helping search for a little while? I know you usually prefer to retire to bed later than the others.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” Pidge said. She got up and joined Coran to leave the lounge, walking along the outside border of the furniture to avoid passing in front of Keith, and the two of them ducked into the hallway.

“Come on,” Shiro said. “Bedtime for the rest of us.” He patted Lance’s shoulder as he passed behind the couch, an invitation for him to come along, and Lance rose from his seat to leave with the others. They filed out of the room, Lance bringing up the rear, but he noticed when he glanced back that only one person hadn’t gotten up to leave. He doubled back to look.

Keith had, rather than joining the others, simply lay down stretched across the couch. He squirmed against the backrest of the couch and nestled his head against the armrest, his neck at a stiff and awkward-looking angle, not improved much when he tucked his arm under his head.

“What are you doing?” Lance asked, moving back into lounge to approach him.

“Going to bed,” Keith answered in a grunt.

“Out here?”

“Yeah.”

“Wouldn’t you rather sleep in your room?”

Keith snorted. “You mean my cell?”

“It’s not a cell,” Lance said with a frown.

“Yeah, it is,” Keith said. He rolled over onto his side, facing away from Lance, but he continued, “Doesn’t matter how nice the room is; if I’m not allowed to decide when to leave it, it’s a cell. Now just let me sleep.”

“You know the lights stay on in the lounge during the night cycle.”

“I don’t care.”

“You could… you could take one of the other rooms, you know. The castle’s got plenty to spare.”

“Nah, don’t want to risk it.”

Lance tilted his head. “Don’t want to risk what?”

Keith finally rolled back over to face him again, and he was scowling grimly. “What do you think? The entrance to the lounge doesn’t lock. The doors to the bedrooms do. That’s the deciding factor here.”

“Oh,” Lance said. “Well, uh, you can still – ”

“What’s it matter to you anyhow?”

“It doesn’t. It’s just that, uh, if you start… sleepwalking, or something, it’d be good to have to just stay in the one bedroom.”

Keith stared at him, then his glower sharpened, eyes narrowing. “Are you fucking serious? You’re actually siding with Allura here? You think I should be locked up too?”

“Wha– no, I didn’t say that, I – ”

“Get out.”

Lance held up his hands in innocence. “All right, all right, I’m getting out. Have fun sleeping out here. I’ll go ahead and go to my actual  _bed_.”

“Goody for you,” Keith mumbled, and that was all the response he gave, so Lance continued on his way back to the living quarters for the night.

He saw Keith again at breakfast the next morning, and he had to bite his tongue to hold back the ‘I told you so’ taunting that threatened to escape, because Keith clearly hadn’t gotten a single iota of decent sleep last night. His face was flushed with deep shadows under his eyes, he walked slowly and just a little unsteadily with his hand pressed against his undoubtedly very sore back, and his tangled hair was matted funny on one side from where it had been pressed against the armrest.

“Take it your beauty sleep went well?” Lance asked as Keith sank into the chair across from him. Keith just glowered as he reached along the table to grab a plate and plop some food onto it.

Allura, Hunk, and Shiro were already at the table and working on their breakfasts when Keith had entered. Allura made no acknowledgment that she had even seen Keith arrive, but both Hunk and Shiro were frowning at him, not having missed the fact that he was currently being even less of a morning person than usual. “You doing okay, Keith?” Shiro asked.

“Yes,” Keith answered through clenched teeth. He stabbed at his eggs, fist curled around the handle of his spork, but made no attempt to actually eat them.

Shiro raised his brow and opened his mouth, probably readying a follow-up question, but was interrupted by Coran’s loud, “Good morning!” as he entered the kitchen, Pidge trailing behind him and rubbing blearily at her eyes.

“Morning,” Lance said. “You didn’t stay up all night, did you Pidge?”

“No,” she answered as she joined the others at the table. “Fell asleep in the lab at some point.”

“Right on top of a touch pad,” Coran added. “She’d written several thousand lines of code that were just the same symbol typed over and over before I noticed.”

“He didn’t ask for the details, Coran.”

“Did you find anything?” Shiro asked.

Pidge yawned before answering, “Colossal waste of time. I don’t think this situation has any historical precedent.”

“However,” Coran said, “We did do a bit of brainstorming together while we were searching, and we think we may have an idea of something we could do to try and get a little more information.”

“How?” Keith asked, furrowing his brow.

“Okay, so, we’re not completely sure how much it will be able to help,” Pidge said, “But what if we did a mind-meld with Keith?”

“A mind-meld,” Keith repeated quietly, brow pinching further.

“What would that accomplish?” Lance asked.

“Well,” Pidge said, “You know how we’ve used the mind-meld thing before to look at little bits of each other’s thoughts and pasts and stuff, for team bonding and all? It’s the same thing.”

“We’re aware that Keith’s memory of the events he has experienced are rather shaky,” Coran said. “But the mind-meld can help with that, can help bring them to light.”

“So, we got to thinking, what if the rest of us were able to take a look around at whatever bits you  _do_  remember?”

“There are many things that people remember subconsciously, things they know without even realizing they know them. There may be details present in whatever memories you have of your time in captivity that have escaped your notice, that you’re not able to recall from the surface, but which are still accessible if pulled into focus, and which someone else might spot looking into the memories as an outsider perspective.”

“Right,” Pidge said. “And it’ll be simple enough to get the machine set up and everything, so we could even get this done later today if we – ”

_“No.”_

So abruptly that Lance hadn’t even spotted him moving, Keith was standing up, fists against the table holding him upright, an icy scowl on his face.

“What do you mean, no?” Allura asked, settling her stern gaze on him.

“How many meanings could there possibly be? I mean:  _no_. We’re not doing a mind-meld.”

“Keith, my boy,” Coran said, “I realize perhaps it’s a long shot, but it certainly couldn’t do any harm to see what we might be able to extract in a group effort.”

“It can do  _plenty_  of harm,” Keith growled. “We’re not doing it.”

Allura folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t see how it could possibly harm you in any way. At least, not unless there’s anything you remember that you wish to keep hidden from the rest of us.”

Keith swung his head to face her. “That has nothing to do with it! I just don’t want anyone hooking me up to some goddamn machine and digging through my head, got it?!”

“I don’t think you’re the one in the position to be making that call,” Allura said, meeting Keith’s gaze calmly. “The fact of the matter is that we need answers, and you may have them. If your lack of cooperation is what’s standing in the way of us finally being able to figure out this mess, then you can hardly fault us for considering alternate methods of getting that information.”

“ _Allura_ ,” Shiro said warningly.

“That’s enhanced interrogation!” Keith shouted, face reddening in his anger. “That’s a fucking  _war crime!”_

“Keith, it’s not like we’re trying to torture it out of you or anything,” Pidge said. “The mind-meld is completely painless. We aren’t planning on messing with your mind or anything, so don’t – ”

She was interrupted by Keith slamming his fist against the table like a gavel.  _“I – said – NO!”_  he cried. “And I’m not arguing with you over this! It is not happening!”

He stood from the table, his chair sliding back across the floor with a metallic screech, and stomped out of the room without looking back. The others sat in an uncertain silence in his wake.

“So, uh,” said Pidge. “Does this mean another dead end?”

Shiro shook his head. “No, no, I wouldn’t dismiss it just yet. A mind-meld’s actually a pretty good idea for figuring out what he remembers, he just – he probably just needs to think it over. I guess I could try to talk to him?”

“Do it,” Pidge said. “I’d hate to let our best idea go to waste just because Keith wants to be a stubborn ass.”

Shiro sighed and reached out to pick up Keith’s plate, frowning at the barely-touched food. “I’ll go take this over to his room. He can’t be stubborn enough to resist food.”

“He won’t be in his room,” Lance said as Shiro stood up.

“What? Why not?”

“Scared of getting locked in. He slept in the paladin’s lounge last night.”

Shiro shot a glare toward Allura, who suddenly became intensely focused on her plate, refusing to take her eyes off of it. “Of course,” he said. “Well, I’ll track him down, then. See you all later.”

He left without further ado, and the others finished up their breakfasts before going about their day. Lance took to the training deck. Normally, he had never really been in the habit of going out of the way to train unless it was group training or someone else asked him along, but he’d made the decision to start putting in the extra effort. It was unlikely that he would be fighting Keith again any time soon, but if he did, he didn’t want to get thrown for a loop like he had before; he wanted to wipe the floor with that stupid mullet.

There was no clock or timekeeper on the training deck, so he measured his time progress instead by how much sweat he managed to accumulate. He waited until he had reached better-not-let-Allura-smell-me-right-now-if-I-ever-want-to-stand-a-chance-with-her levels of perspiration before he decided he’d worked enough for the day and called an end to the training sequence.

He went back to the living quarters to shower the stench of exertion off of him in the communal bathroom. As he was stepping out of the shower, one towel around his waist and the other on his head as he rubbed his hair dry, he nearly bumped into Shiro, who was entering with his own bathroom paraphenalia. “Sorry,” he grunted, moving out of the way. “You washing off some exercise too?”

“No, just haven’t gotten around to my morning shower yet,” Shiro answered. “Been busy.”

“Busy?” Lance repeated. “With what? You – wait, you haven’t been talking to Keith all this time, have you?”

“I have,” Shiro answered with a nod.

Lance raised a brow. He hadn’t even been aware that Shiro was capable of holding a conversation that long outside of official meetings; he certainly had never done so with any of the other paladins. “What’d you two even talk about?”

“Stuff,” Shiro said with a shrug. “I guess I kinda had some catching up to do. Hadn’t really chatted with him at all in the last few days, what with, well, everything going on.” His voice lowered and his gaze dropped, as if he was somehow ashamed or guilty of the fact, and Lance couldn’t help but feel a flicker of annoyance. It’s not like it was Shiro’s responsibility to give Keith a social life or keep him happy. Blowing him off for a bit because they were coming to terms with new evidence that he might be an enemy spy wasn’t exactly a crime. Shiro had nothing to feel bad about.

“You know, uh, speaking of chatting,” Lance said, deciding to steer the conversation away from Shiro and Keith’s stupid bond or whatever it was they had going on, “You and Allura, yesterday. I never got the chance to ask how that went.”

“It went fine.”

“What’d you guys say?”

Shiro sighed. “I think that’s actually just between myself and Allura.”

Lance pulled a face. “It’s really not. This whole thing between you two is making things weird for everyone, so, seeing as we’re being affected, I think we should be in the know, yeah?”

“Lance, it isn’t – ”

“Besides, aren’t you guys always saying that the team needs to form close bonds and stuff for the sake of Voltron? We can’t do that when you’re driving a big old wedge into everything. We’re supposed to be, like, open.” He folded his arms. “Especially with your right-hand man. I’m – I’m still your right-hand man… aren’t I?”

Shiro went quiet for a moment as if thinking it over before he let out a long, slow breath. “You are. Of course you are. I, uh, I didn’t realize we were upsetting the team dynamic or anything, I only – it’s one thing not to see eye-to-eye with your teammate, another when it seems to be coming down to moral differences. Fundamentally different ideas of how things should be handled.”

“That’s what you and Allura talked about?”

“Yeah. Sort of. A little. It actually wasn’t as much a discussion as it was just letting Allura vent for a bit.” He sighed and scratched at the back of his neck. “She kinda needed it. I know pulling double duty both being a paladin and powering the castle has been taking a lot out of her, and this is just one more thing on top of it. And, well, I can see where she’s coming from in regards to wanting to be careful about trust, especially considering her, ah, history. She does have a right to be shaken up by everything with Zarkon.”

“So, you’re back on her side now?”

“Well, no. Understanding doesn’t equal agreement. Like, I see why she’s having trouble with this, but I don’t think it’s right for her to be getting hung up on the past and her… well, her prejudices. No matter how much this whole war’s taken a toll on all of us. She’s letting it cloud her judgment, and I just – I just don’t want that wind up hurting someone.” He leaned up against the counter that held the bathroom’s two hand sinks. “We definitely haven’t achieved peace with each other yet, but, at least we got it all out in the open. That’s something, at least.”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “Yeah, I guess.”

Shiro rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Damn, it’s been a stressful couple of days. First Allura, then the prison, now Keith’s kinda pissed at me as well…”

Lance’s ears perked up at that. “Keith’s mad at you? Why?”

“Because I tried to persuade him that the mind-meld was worth trying. He did not want to hear it.” He sighed. “In any case, I’m hoping a nice hot shower can help me de-stress from everything. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Lance said, sidling out of the way as Shiro passed him to go toward the shower stalls. He gave his hair one last rub with the towel before he let it fall to his shoulders and made his way back to his own room.

He kept an eye on both Shiro and Allura during their next two meals, trying to look for any signs that one of was starting to relent on their own stance and surrender the argument to the other. There were none, but there were also no signs of any sort of resentment between them. Damn, they were good at faking everything being perfectly normal. He would have to ask Shiro to teach him how to do that sometime.

He didn’t see Keith for the rest of the day.

In fact, he barely gave the guest any thought at all until the next morning, when he had woken up early again, decided that maybe he’d play a game of War against himself to pass the time, and went to the paladins’ lounge in search of Pidge’s deck of cards. He had nearly forgotten about Keith’s new sleeping arrangement until he entered the lounge and spotted him.

He was still lying across the couch, although he had curled into himself a bit during the night. And as Lance drew near, he could see that Keith was shivering, face scrunched in distress. Lance shook his head and tutted softly. “That’s what you get for going to sleep out here without so much as a blanket, you idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

For a moment he debated ducking out to find him a blanket or something – if he was so insistent on moving out here permanently, he may as well not try to freeze to death – but when he inspected Keith closer, he paused. Lance had assumed it was cold that had Keith shivering the way he was, but his lips were moving in near-silent mumbling, and his fingers will gripping too tightly to the edge of the couch cushion, and his brows were arched and scrunched too low.

Lance had seen this before. He had only seen Shiro have nightmares a couple of times before – once when he’d accidentally fallen asleep in the kitchen, and once when Lance had slipped into Shiro’s room in the middle of the night to look for spare pillows he and Hunk could use in their fort. Both times, Shiro had looked a lot like how Keith looked now. It didn’t take a genius to realize what that indicated.

“Keith?” he said. “Hey, you okay?” Of course he wasn’t; the guy was shaking like someone had put him on vibrate. “Keith, man, you’re dreaming,” he continued. “Wake up.” He put his hand onto Keith’s upper arm to try to shake him awake, but that didn’t seem to help.

Rather than waking up, Keith just seemed to squeeze his eyes shut even tighter, and his breathing got louder and faster as he curled further into himself. “Stop it,” he managed to force out in a strained croak. “Stop it, stop it, please, I don’t - I don’t - go away.”

“Hey, Keith!” Lance’s voice rose to a half-shout. He kept shaking Keith by the arm, more roughly now. “You’re having a nightmare, man! Wake up, it’s not real!”

Eyes still closed, Keith started trying to tug his arm away, an effort that was in vain as Lance held firm. “Leave - ” he panted, tossing his head to the side to half-roll away from Lance. “Leave me alone, leave me - don’t - don’t go in - don’t go in there…” His voice was growing higher, steadily approaching a whine.

Lance moved around the couch and leaned over the armrest so he was right in Keith’s face. “Keith!” he all but yelled. “Hey! Wake up!”

This time Keith’s eyes flickered open, and they widened as Keith shot awake and instantly jerked himself away, flopping unceremoniously onto the floor with a yelp and crossing his arms in front of him as if bracing for a blow, panting heavily all the while. It took several ticks before he finally seemed to notice his surroundings, and slowly he lowered his arms and looked warily around him, until eventually he spotted Lance. “What are you doing here?” he asked, voice still raspy from his harsh breathing.

“Waking you up,” Lance answered. “You were, uh, kinda freaking out there.”

“Oh.” Keith was silent for a moment before he hesitantly moved to drag himself back onto the couch. “Sorry.”

Lance waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. What, uh… what were you even dreaming about?”

“I don’t know,” Keith grunted.

“Seriously, just tell me,” Lance insisted, rolling his eyes. “I’m not gonna judge or anything.”

Keith glared up at him. “I said I don’t know. Doesn’t matter what it was or how bad it was or anything – once I wake up, it’s long forgotten. Happens every time.”

Lance raised a brow. “Every time? How many nights have you been having nightmares like this?”

“I dunno,” Keith answered with a shrug. “All of them?”

“Wait, you’ve been having nightmares every night?” Well, now Lance had an explanation for why Keith still constantly looked to be half-dead on his feet. If he was doing _that_ every night in his sleep, he can’t have been getting much actual rest. “Damn, man, that’s – that’s not okay.”

“I’m aware.”

“No, seriously, you’ve gotta do something about that. You’re gonna end up dead of fatigue if you keep going like this. Don’t you think you should at least try and figure out what your nightmares _are_ or something?”

Keith exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose. “And how precisely do you think I could even go about that, huh?”

“I dunno. Maybe Coran could find some way to monitor dreams or something?”

Keith’s head shot up. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Is your solution to everything just to have someone go poking through my head?”

“What?” Lance said.

“First the whole mind-meld thing, and now you’re – ”

“Wait, wait, hold up, I didn’t even _mention_ the mind-meld. I’m just trying to help.”

“Well, don’t,” Keith snapped. “I don’t need it. It’s just some dumb nightmares, and it’s my own problem to deal with.”

Lance sighed and sank down to sit on the couch, against the armrest opposite Keith. “God, you sound just like Shiro.”

Keith’s expression softened a bit as he blinked over at Lance. “What do you mean?”

“That. That stuff you said. When you’re perfectly aware that you’re screwed up but for some reason you don’t want anyone to acknowledge it or try to help? That just screams Shiro. You guys really are two peas, aren’t you.”

Keith’s face fell to a scowl. “It’s not – it isn’t – it’s different.”

“How?” Lance asked. Keith gritted his teeth and looked away. “Yeah, you see it, right? Was Shiro like that when you thought you were a paladin?”

“When I _was_ a paladin,” Keith growled.

“Yeah, whatever. Point is, Shiro’s got all that stuff in his head, and we all know it, on account of the sorts of things he does during training and stuff but he just… tries to pretend. So it doesn’t get better, you know? Drives the rest of us nuts.” He took a deep breath through his nose and let it out. “And it really sucks. I mean, teams are supposed to help each other, right? And he doesn’t let us. Did he do that with you?”

Keith turned to look down at his feet before softly answering, “Yeah. He did.”

“So, there you go, you get it,” Lance said. “And I’m just saying, you’re kinda doing the same shit as him. I was – I’m just trying to help. We all are.”

“Lance – ”

“I’m not saying you have to do the mind-meld or anything. It’s just, you know, we all wanna help with whatever it is that happened to you – okay, maybe Allura doesn’t, but the rest of us do, Shiro especially – and we can’t really help if we don’t know what it is we’re supposed to be helping with. And if the memories are there somewhere, then, well, mind-meld’s probably the easiest way to get to them, right?”

He stood up from the couch and stretched his arms over his head. “And, I don’t know how relevant this is, but I figure if Pidge and Coran were offering up some way to help on a silver platter, to help not just him but the rest of us, I think Shiro would do it. Even if he didn’t want to. Might take some persuading, yeah, but, well…” He shrugged. “Just saying. I know Shiro thinks it’s a good idea, so, you know, something to keep in mind.”

He waited for a reply, but none was forthcoming. Instead Keith kept perfectly silent and still, staring down at his feet with eyes that almost looked glassy. Lance frowned, wondering if Keith had even been paying attention to what he’d said. “Well, I’m heading off to breakfast,” Lance said. “So, uh, see you later, I guess.” He got no goodbye from Keith, so he went on his way without one.

Keith didn’t show up to breakfast, the third meal in a row he’d skipped out on. He did, however, finally join the others in the kitchen during lunch. Not to eat, though. He marched through the entryway of the kitchen when the others were all halfway through their meal, and he didn’t go for any food. Instead he strode to the table to stand across from Lance, staring him dead in the eye.

“I want to do it,” he said with no preamble.

Lance glanced over at the rest of the group before responding, “Uh, actually, I usually wait until at least the third date to – ”

“No, not – shut up.” Keith turned to address the others instead. “The mind-meld. I – I want to do the mind-meld.


	10. Chapter 10

Four of the five paladins sat cross-legged on the floor, forming a wide ring around the cold floor. The only one not seated was Allura, who was on her feet helping Coran set up the headsets for the mind-meld. An empty space was left for her in the circle, making for six spaces in all.

Keith filled that sixth space, a new one that required the paladins to adjust their usual positions in the mind-meld. Shiro sat to Keith’s left, Lance to his right, and both were watching him warily. Despite how emphatically he had insisted he wanted to do this mind-meld, he currently looked like he would rather be doing anything else. His pallor was chalky, and his lips were pursed tightly together as if he were trying to keep himself from being sick as he watched Allura move around the circle, helping to get everyone’s headsets into place and adjust the wiring.

“You all right?” Shiro asked him, and Keith nodded, despite being very obviously not all right, and in fact looking like he was growing a little green. “Just breathe,” Shiro continued. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“I know that,” Keith said, voice shaky. Allura finished ensuring that Lance’s headset was properly in place, and she moved on to Keith, who shied away as she approached him with a headset in hand.

“It doesn’t hurt, you know,” Allura said.

Keith gulped. “Yeah, I know, I know, just – just do it quick, okay?”

Allura nodded and leaned over him, readying to set up the device. However, the moment the headset brushed against his hair, Keith’s eyes went wide and he jerked away, throwing the upper half of his body forward.

Allura fumbled with the headset, nearly having dropped it in her surprise. “Keith!” she snapped. “What are you doing?”

“I – I – ” Keith stammered, slowly sitting up straight again. “I didn’t mean to do that. Sorry.” He squirmed where he sat and rolled his shoulders back, taking a long breath, and he looked sheepishly up at Allura, who rolled her eyes.

“Okay, well, don’t do it again,” she huffed, bringing the device back to his head again. Keith didn’t fling himself away this time, but again his eyes widened the moment the headset touched him. He bent further downward, lowering himself away from the device and continuing to squirm away from it.

Allura pulled back with an exasperated click of her tongue. “Is there any particular reason you’re trying to waste my time right now?”

“N-no, I – I didn’t mean – ” He drew in a trembling breath. “I dunno, it’s just instinct or something. Won’t happen again.”

“Fine,” Allura said. One more time she lowered the device, and this time Keith didn’t move when it touched him, aside from his body shaking. He stiffened as Allura reached for one of the straps, and, before she could begin to fasten it, he suddenly brought his arms up, knocking Allura’s arm aside and the not yet attached headset to the floor.

Lance groaned. “Oh, for the love of – can’t you just get Coran to hold him down or something?”

 _“No!”_  Keith said, aghast. “No, no holding me down! I – I can get this.”

“You haven’t so far,” Allura said. “Honestly, you said you were fine with doing this, so why can’t you just cooperate?”

“I  _am_  fine with it!” Keith said. “I just – I just don’t like having stuff stuck to my head, that’s all.”

“None of us are crazy about it, man,” Hunk said. “They’re not designed for comfort, but honestly, they don’t even pinch much, and you don’t have to wear it long.”

“It’s not that, it’s – ”

“We really do need you to keep still, my boy,” Coran piped up from where he stood at the controls. “Can’t get it situated properly if you keep moving around.”

“I  _know_ that, I – ”

“Keith,” Shiro said slowly, “If you don’t want to do the mind-meld, it’s okay. We’ll underst– ”

“No, it’s  _fine_ ,” Keith snapped. “I’m doing this. Just – just give me a second.” He squeezed his eyes shut and took heavy, shaky breaths as he composed himself, his hands at his sides curling against the ground like he was trying to grip the floor with his fingertips. After a few dobashes passed, long enough that Allura began tapping her foot in impatience, he finally nodded, although he kept his eyes screwed shut. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, just do it.”

“Are you actually going to let me this time?” Allura asked coolly.

“Yes, damn it,” Keith growled. “Now just get it over with, before I change my mind.”

Skepticism was still written across Allura’s face as she brought the headset down one last time, and although Keith did still stiffen at the touch and Lance could see his shoulders rising and falling more rapidly as his breath quickened, he otherwise kept his composure. Well, aside from the little sounds he made every time another glowing blue terminal was stuck onto his skin, sounds that might have been whimpers, but were too quiet for Lance to know for sure.

He remained stock-still even as Allura moved away, body tensed as if he were ready to spring to his feet at any moment, but he didn’t. He stayed seated, eyes still closed, breathing unsteadily, face as white as the device attached to him.

Allura took her place in the circle, and Coran helped her adjust her own headset before returning to the controls. “All right, is everybody ready?” he asked. When everyone gave him their confirmation – except for Keith, who stayed silent – he continued, “Excellent. Now, Keith, we want to try to make this as smooth as simple as possible for you. We want you to try to remember your captivity with the Galra army, and we need you to remain open to sharing them with us. However, you needn’t push yourself. If you remember something that you don’t feel you can handle, we won’t force you to stay on that memory, and we won’t dig. And if at any point you need to stop, you can break the meld and take some time to breathe. Does that all sound good to you? Keith, does that sound good?” he repeated when he got no response, and this time Keith gave him the slightest of nods. “All righty then. Everybody in.”

Lance dropped his eyes closed. This was always the tough part of mind-melds for him. He usually had a fairly easy time getting his own memories front and center, and had a plethora that he was more than happy to share with the rest of the team, but to properly get immersed into someone else’s memory during a meld, he had to welcome it in by clearing his mind, and he was not wired for meditation.

_Come on, Lance, clear your mind. Just stay still and think of nothing at all. Does my foot itch? No, no, doesn’t matter, don’t think about it. Think of nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Doesn’t even really seem like a word anymore. Nuh-thing. No thing. Nuth-hing… Oh, for the love of fuck, Lance, concentrate._

He tampered down his thoughts as best he could, trying his damnedest to keep his head blank and silent. Thankfully, after a couple of moments, he must have done a sufficient job, began his surroundings began to morph around him. He’d made it into what memory Keith was giving them.

Seeing a memory in a mind-meld was always a bizarre sensation. He would be surrounded by the environment of the memory, but its parts would constantly go in and out of focus when he concentrated on it. He could also feel himself doing whatever the owner of the memory had done at the time, his tactile and olfactory senses would be in gear in addition to sight and sound, but it was only a tentative connection, like he was getting a déjà vu of the feelings rather than experiencing them in real time.

So he could feel the phantom sensation of adrenaline coursing through him as he – or, Keith – ran across a wide and darkened hall, sword in his gloved hand, bringing the blade down on… wait, that was a training robot. What was – ?

The memory flickered, dissolving into a new one, this one on the exterior of a red-rock planet, his sword replaced by a knife and now sheathed at his side, and he was running beside a much larger figure in a familiar-looking uniform. It took Lance a moment to put it together; Keith seemed to be thinking about the Blades in general, not yet having honed in on the exact mission where he’d been taken down.

Another memory faded in, this one free of action, just him inside what looked to be some sort of boardroom illuminated only by a glowing green-blue map on a screen that stretched across one wall. Someone out of his line of sight was saying something, but before he could listen properly, it dissolved again, this time putting him in a hallway lined with the pink and purple lights that indicated the interior of a Galra base. The adrenaline was back, but he was stationary, waiting as a metallic figure to pass by around a corner. Lance was pretty sure Keith had found the right memory.

As the figure went out of sight, he darted out and down the hall, slipping through an automatic door and into a room that seemed to be a closet-sized computer lab. Into a jack in the processor he inserted some sort of drive that he’d had in his hand, and a window opened up on one of the screens above. He laid his hand onto a touchpad beneath the screen, and with his other hand tapped one of the symbols on the screen itself. Lance couldn’t read any of them, as they were all in Galra, but something he was pretty sure was a loading bar popped onto the screen and he watched it as it slowly filled.

“Okay,” Lance felt himself saying in Keith’s voice. “It should be scrambled now. Get into the sub-level now and you’ll have some time before anyone discovers any problem manually.”

 _“They’re not scrambled,”_ said a deep voice in Lance’s ear, where he hadn’t noticed he had an earpiece.

“What?” he said. “No, it finished out, you’re clear.”

_“The locking system here is still holding just as it was. You must have made some mistake.”_

“No, I did exactly what Ulkar told me to, there wasn’t much to it. Something’s wrong.”

_“Does the security near not operate on the same standard protocols as the other Galra bases?”_

“It looked the same to me. I definitely disabled the sentry bots at least, so I don’t know what – ”

He was interrupted by a sudden wailing noise that filled the room, rising and falling and sounding like a mix between a siren and a shriek. The lights in the room flickered rhythmically along with it. “What the – ?!”

 _“We’ve been compromised,”_ said the voice in his ear. _“I believe we’ve been spotted.”_

“How? Vornek said cameras and motion sensors were taken care of, I got the sentry bots – ”

_“Not bots. There’s a live patrol.”_

“What?!”

_“Our intel must have been incorrect.”_

“But what about – ?”

_“No time. Get out of here. I think it might be – ”_

The voice was cut off with a loud, static crackle that left Lance’s eardrum throbbing. “Ivros?!” he called. “Ivros, do you read?! Ivros, come in! Shit, shit, shit, shit…”

He shot off out of the little room, and the memory began to blur here. Lance noticed the way the surrounding halls swept by in streaks, and he was moving fast, yes, but not fast enough for that. It seemed for whatever was going on in this part of the memory, Keith had been ignoring his surroundings at the time and turning all his attention to movement and sensation instead.

Around a corner he saw of group of figures at the far end of the hall, and in a flash, he was among them, thrusting the sword in his hand into an enormous chest clad in the uniform of the Galra army. Something caught him in the side, knocking him away, but he swiveled and brought the sword around again, running it neatly through another guard. He yanked the blade out and turned to swing at an oncoming opponent, but he couldn’t finish the blow.

Instead, his movement was caught off by a thundering crash, and he was thrown across the room, a sudden bright light blinding him and surrounded by the heat of an explosion. He landed on his stomach and threw his arms up over his head, but a weight appeared on his back, and something struck him low on the skull. Even through the mind-meld Lance could feel a sharp pressure there; it must have hurt like hell when it had happened for real.

The memory faded to white before dissolving into another one, and his vision swayed a little, dark at the edges, and Lance felt Keith trying to steady himself, although it wasn’t easy; he couldn’t seem to get his arms to work, couldn’t move them from behind his back, and his knees, pressed against a cold hard floor, seemed to be taking most of his weight.

A figure stood in front of him, another in a Galra uniform, and Keith seemed to have dropped them off partway through a memory, since the figure was in the middle of a sentence. “ – in touch with the hub at Messier-80, see what they know,” she said.

“Will do, commander,” said a voice behind Keith. Lance wanted to turn around to look, but Keith kept his eyes on the commander in front of him as she leaned down and curled her hand into his hair to forcefully tilt his head upward.

“Doesn’t look like any Blade I’ve ever seen,” the commander said. She tugged Keith’s head back so far that he was looking at the ceiling lights, and Lance felt a shadow of the sensation of Keith’s jaw being pried open and fingers jabbing into his mouth. “You sure it’s even Galra?”

“It used our technology.”

“Wait a minute.” His hair was dropped so the commander could grab his chin instead, angling him to look her in the eyes. “I know this species. This is Terran.”

“Terran?”

“How quickly can we get in contact with the royal warship?”

“You’d have us contact it directly?”

“If we can. I think they’ll want to know about this.”

She released his chin, and Keith took the opportunity to lunge out as best he could and use the only weapon he had available, latching onto her hand with his teeth. The commander flung her hand away, leaving blood dripping in its wake, and something hard collided with his back, sending him forward. Lance felt the waves of sensation emit from where Keith’s chin cracked against the floor, and his vision faded to black.

The visuals didn’t return yet, and what was either the next memory or a continuation of this one was dark, but Lance could distantly detect a tactile sensation, of his hands and feet being stuck in place and the walls of wherever he was being far too close together, as if they were caving in on him, and he felt Keith breathing fast and shallow, the air stale and hot and –

And suddenly it wasn’t dark anymore, and there was way too much light. He felt himself pinned down as agonizingly white lights burst around him, amid more of those Galra pinks and purples. Something was pushing on his neck, and his body was lurching uselessly, and the surroundings seemed to be distorting, like he was looking at them through warped glass. Whatever Keith was trying to show them, he didn’t seem to have a very firm handle on it.

Keith must have realized that too, since Lance found himself being shoved into another memory, a clearer one. He was lying flat, pressed tightly against whatever surface he was on, staring at a pair of Galra who had their back to him. There was another surge of that strange light, and he turned his head, tugging at whatever was keeping him down. A shadow fell over him, and something clamped down onto his head, and his efforts to thrash away increased tenfold. Lance felt a squeezing sensation throughout his skull, one that must have been much worse the first time, since he could feel a scream trying to make its away out of his – Keith’s – throat, only to be cut off by some sort of bitter metal in and around his mouth keeping it tightly shut.

The shadow moved, and Lance caught a glimpse of a face, dark and sunken and all edges and embedded with yellow eyes that glowed brightly, eerily, before a gnarled and clawed hand came down over him.

The white light spread instantly, overtaking his surroundings until it was all he could see, and Lance felt the most bizarre sensation yet. Like he was being ripped out of his own body, stretched in two. Unwound, torn apart.

Another memory now, and this one Lance recognized. He knew Red’s cockpit like the back of his hand, and here it was, in Keith’s memory, weaving through the debris surrounding Taujeer. This was his own memory, wasn’t it? Only, this one was… off. It took Lance a second to realize it, but the lights in Red’s cockpit had never been this bright before, and the chatter and static on the comms shouldn’t have been so loud.

Before he could even attempt to think about what that meant, he was yanked to another memory. He was in a classroom at the Garrison, a teacher pointing to images on a projection against the wall and lecturing him on ballistics. But, no, that couldn’t be right, because his hands were still at Red’s controls, he was still moving. The classroom seemed almost to glow with its colors that were far more vibrant than any that Lance had ever seen at the Garrison, and the teacher was practically shouting to be heard over the comms and the sound of flight surrounding him.

Then he wasn’t flying anymore, and there was a sword in his hand. He whipped around to look at his surroundings, and he knew he was either in a cave or a school cafeteria; every time he was certain about which one, it seemed to morph into the other. And he shouldn’t have been able to find a training bot in either location, but one was racing toward him, and he struck at it with his sword, one that was black at the hilt with a glowing purple in the center, until he swung it again and it was white and red, then purple again, then red –

And, God, it was all so fucking _loud_. Lance’s ears were ringing and for a moment he was certain they were bleeding, but maybe that was just because everything seemed to be melting together around him, a desert scape and a crowded living room and an uninhabited planet and the castle’s dining hall all melding into one around him. And he was running, but he was also buckled into the back of a car, and someone was holding his arm in a bruising grip while he ziplined toward his lion’s hangar, surrounded by strange blue etchings on rock walls around him, except, no, they were actually stars, and then clouds, and then some flowery wallpaper and all at once he was hiding under a table and throwing a punch and falling from a cliff and desperately stretching his arm out to retrieve his bayard that had been thrown aside and screaming at the top of his lungs and staying dead silent so they wouldn’t find him and being pulled apart into a thousand pieces…

And then things froze, paused, jerked. The world or worlds caving in on him were fracturing and jolting like a stalling DVD and in the intermittent nanoseconds of silence Lance came to his senses enough to remember that this was just a mind-meld, just memories, and he could cut this short now. He pulled away, leaving the noise and lights miles behind him, and he yanked his headset off, shaking and feeling like he was having the worst case of motion sickness he had ever experienced.

It took several seconds for Lance’s eyes and mind to adjust to reality again and bring the world back into focus. It seemed everyone else had removed their headsets too, and Pidge and Hunk both met his gaze, wide-eyed and alarmed and probably just as disoriented as he was.

He turned to look at the others, and realized one person had yet to remove their headset. Keith’s was still attached, and Shiro and Allura and Coran were surrounding him, talking over each other and trying to assist, but he looked to be having none of it.

Keith was whipping his head back and forth, the movements desperate. He seemed to be trying to shake the headset off of him; God only knew why he wasn’t using his hands, instead keeping his arms pinned stiffly to his side as if they were bound.

“Get off of me!” he was yelling, jerking forward and practically headbutting Allura when she made another reach for the headset. “Get off – _don’t touch me!_ Don’t touch me! Stop! _Stop!”_

“Keith!” Shiro said. “Keith, it’s okay, we’re trying to help!” He brought his hands down on Keith’s shoulders in an effort to keep him still, but Keith lurched away with a wordless shout scrambling to get away. He fell into Coran, whom he immediately elbowed in the gut.

It seemed that this made Keith suddenly remember that he could use his arms, since his hands flew up to his head to work away at his headset. They didn’t do much good, though; he didn’t seem to quite able to figure out where the wires were in relation to his hands, so instead he clawed frantically at whatever he could reach with no regard for effectiveness, leaving several red scratches on his forehead. His eyes were wild, his movements desperate, animalistic.

Allura was shouting at him to call down, and for the first time Lance could recall in her interactions with Keith, she sounded far more worried than commanding. Shiro managed to grab hold of Keith’s wrists, and he held fast even as Keith kicked and squirmed and tried to get away, snarling and screaming, _“Let go of me! Let me go! Get – get away from me!”_

Coran finally managed to snatch the headset, and Allura leant her weight to Keith’s legs to stop him from kicking as the device was pried off his head. Shiro must have relaxed his grip right afterward, because Keith yelled out as he wrenched his arm out of Shiro’s grasp and flung it out wildly, catching Coran in the face. The latter lurched back and turned away, bringing his hands up to cover his nose, from which a dark liquid had started to pour like a faucet and began soaking his gloves.

All Lance could think to do was sit frozen in place and stare at the scene as Shiro and Allura pinned him to the floor, both pleading with him to wind down and trying to convince him that he was fine, that he wasn’t wherever he thought he was. Keith didn’t seem to want to listen, but gradually his screams faded to sobs, which steadily softened as he slowly stopped his struggling, going limp in Shiro and Allura’s hold and seeming to have collapsed out of sheer exhaustion.

Once things had quieted and Shiro seemed to deem it safe to let go of Keith, he sat back and looked up at Coran, his face ghost-white. “I – I think he’s asleep?” he said quietly.

“Possibly,” Coran said. He had his head tilted back, and the bloodflow from his nose appeared to have slowed, but not stopped. “I think perhaps I ought to go to the infirmary to get this nose taken care of.”

“Is there anything that can… help him?” Shiro asked uncertainly. “Like, settle his nerves for when he wakes up or something?”

“I think there may be. We can look.”

Shiro nodded and, without another word, reached over to scoop Keith up into his arms and stand up. He appeared to do it with relative ease, which indicated either how strong Shiro was, or how light Keith was. Lance had no way of knowing which.

In his sleep Keith curled into Shiro’s hold, rolling unconsciously toward him and finding a grip in his shirt, then not making any more movement afterward. Without so much as a glance at the other paladins, Shiro strode out of the room, Coran following behind him.

The doors slid shut, and the rest of the paladins were left in a deafening silence. Allura slowly got to her feet, but the others stayed sitting, as if none of them wanted to be the first to move or make a sound.

“What the fuck was that?” Pidge finally asked when the silence had stretched on for too long.

“I - I don’t know,” Allura answered in a shaking voice.

“Has that ever happened in a mind-meld before?” Hunk asked.

Allura shook her head. “No, never. At least, not as far as I’m aware.”

Lance slid across the floor to pick up the discarded bundle of wiring that had been on Keith’s head, turning it thoughtfully over in his hand. “Do you think maybe the machine malfunctioned or something?”

“I can’t see how it would have. Coran always checks and calibrates it before we use it. Surely he would have spotted any problem with the device.”

“So that was just, what, his memories, as is?” Hunk asked. “That’s – how?”

“I don’t know,” Allura sighed. “I – I simply can’t imagine how that happened. Maybe it was something in… in Keith’s head… that the machine couldn’t figure out…”

They were quiet as they thought it over. Then, Hunk cleared his throat. “So, uh, I know that whole thing was a doozy,” he said, “And we’re probably going to be unpacking that for a while, but, um, since I’m thinking of it…” He looked around at the others, brow pinched, before he continued. “In those memories, before they went all haywire… did anyone else notice the witch?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope we're all in agreement about the most important thing to take away from this chapter:
> 
> Coran whump. You're welcome.


	11. Chapter 11

None of the paladins were certain what to do with themselves once they had left the room with the mind-meld machine, leaving the scattered headsets behind for Coran to pick up and organize later. Lance, for his part, was achingly curious to see how Keith was doing, what he and Shiro were up to, but also wondered if perhaps it would be better to give the guy some space. Lance did not want to get involved if Keith was still in freak-out mode.

He ended up going to his room to read, but he gave up very quickly when he found that he couldn’t concentrate worth a damn, and left to wander and find some other way to occupy himself instead. He decided on going to the kitchen for a snack, only to find Hunk already there, bustling about the kitchen.

“Stress-baking?” Lance asked, leaning against the kitchen entryway.

“Yep,” Hunk said. “Guess at least  _one_  good thing should come out of all the worry these last couple days. And if that one good thing is cookies, it almost makes it worth it.”

“Need any help?”

Hunk beckoned him in. “Yeah, bowl on the counter needs stirring. Do it by hand, though,” he added, picking a long-handled spork out of a drawer and passing it to Lance. “We don’t need a repeat of the last time you tried to wield an electric mixer.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “If they didn’t want the mixer to be used as a weapon, they shouldn’t have made the whisks so fun. I am not to blame.”

“Sure you aren’t. Stir.”

“Fine, fine.” Lance took up the spork and got to work on the batter in the bowl Hunk had indicated. The two of them worked in a busy silence for a few doboshes before Lance cleared his throat and asked, “So, um, hey, you feeling okay? After the whole mind-meld fiasco? Just, I was kinda feeling like I got off a rollercoaster once we finished, and I know you’re even more prone to that than I am…”

Hunk shuddered. “Yeah, don’t remind me, I’m gonna get nauseous again. Making cookies is no fun while nauseous.”

“Sorry. Figured that’s probably why you’re stress-baking anyhow.”

“Yeah, it’s most of it.” Hunk ran a hand into his hair, tugging unconsciously at his headband as he frowned. “Whole thing’s wild, isn’t it? Gonna be giving me some real interesting dreams tonight, that’s for sure.” He sighed. “You know, it’s kinda fun to theorize with Pidge about this whole thing, and we both do get a kick out of, like, trying to solve the impossible puzzle, but… I dunno, man. It’s like I kinda find myself forgetting that it’s not just some theoretical problem to figure out with physics and stuff. It’s actually, like, a thing, with a person. You know?”

“Uh, kinda?” Lance said slowly.

Hunk shook his head. “Sorry, I’m not making sense, am I? Just thinking things through a lot. That batter all mixed yet?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Lance said, looking down at the batter before lifting the spork to crush a couple of lumps of ingredients that hadn’t blended properly. Hunk brought two large metal trays over to the counter and reached into the batter to start rolling the dough into little balls. Lance brought his own hand in to help, but Hunk smacked it away. “Hey!” Lance yelped, bringing his hand up to his mouth to suck on the sting where Hunk had slapped it.

“No hands-on stuff until you wash them. I don’t trust all those lotions you’re always coating them with.”

“Ugh, fine,  _Mom_ ,” Lance grunted. He got up to move to the sink. “You know, wouldn’t any germs and stuff go away anyway while it’s cooking? Like when you boil lake water?”

“No,” Hunk said. “Doesn’t work like that.”

“You sure?”

“Who’s the scientist here?”

“Pidge.”

“… Who’s the engineer here?”

“Irrelevant.”

Hunk made a face. “All right, whatever, don’t wash your hands. But if you don’t wash them, I’m not letting you help roll the dough, and if you don’t help, then you don’t get to lick the bowl. I’ll lick it all myself and I’ll make you watch.”

“That’s cruel and unusual,” Lance said even as he turned back to the sink and turned the water on to begin scrubbing his hands.

Hunk just rolled his eyes and let Lance finish up his washing, starting to roll the dough into cookies. Lance joined him shortly after and they soon were sliding two trays of cookies into the oven to cook.

“Do you think Keith will want some?” Hunk asked as he set the timer. “Like, once they come out of the oven all fresh? As some comfort food. Should we bring him in here?”

Lance shrugged. “I dunno. I’m not sure he even likes food.”

“What are you talking about? Of course he likes food.”

“Well, he never eats much of it.”

Hunk sighed. “Yeah, but I don’t think that liking or not liking the food is the problem. Unless you’re suggesting that there’s something non-likeable about my cooking?” he added, raising a brow at Lance.

“What? No, of course not.”

“Then there’s no reason he wouldn’t want the cookies.”

“Fine, I guess not.” Lance straightened up from where he’d been watching the cookies through the oven door and went to hoist himself up onto the table, idly swinging his legs. “But even if he does want them, don’t know how you’re gonna get him to wanna come get them. He hasn’t been in the kitchen with the rest of us in ages and, well – ” He frowned and stopped swinging his legs, letting them simply dangle instead. “Do you think he even wants to see the rest of us right now? After… that?”

Hunk frowned thoughtfully. “Oh yeah. Didn’t, uh, didn’t really consider that. Maybe we’ll just call Shiro in here and get him to deliver them to Keith, then? If anyone will get Keith to actually eat them, it’ll be him.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Lance said with a nod. “Have you seen Shiro at all yet since the mind-meld?”

Hunk shook his head. “No. You?”

“Nope.”

“Hm.” Hunk furrowed his brow and moved to join Lance at the table, although he pulled out a chair instead of sitting on the table’s surface, always the one to be counted on for table manners. “Hope he’s holding up okay.”

“Course he is. There was just the adrenaline rush and motion sickness, and he’s the quickest out of all of us to recover from stuff like that.”

“No, no, I meant – the witch. In Keith’s memories. That was Zarkon’s witch wasn’t it? The same one who, uh…”

Lance frowned. “Oh. Shit, you’re right.” He didn’t know how he hadn’t picked up on that immediately. He supposed after the whole fiasco all his attention had just been on Keith’s reaction, and Shiro himself had seemed entirely focused on calming him down, not on thinking about what they’d seen in the mind-meld. But if that had been Zarkon’s witch there was no way that wouldn’t be on the forefront of Shiro’s mind right now.

It seemed Shiro and Keith had yet another thing to bond over that the rest of them couldn’t touch.

Lance shook his head as if shaking the thought right out of his mind. As much as he wished Shiro would take a bit of a break from fretting over Keith so much, Shiro probably needed it. And he was perfectly content with ‘being tormented by an insane witch’ not being something that himself and the black paladin had in common. He refocused his attention on Hunk, who had been starting to idly talk half-to-himself about that revelation. “What was her name again?” he asked Lance. “Hag-something?”

“Yeah, ‘hag’ sounds about right,” Lance said with a nod.

“Gonna have to double-check with Shiro. Man, if she’s involved in whatever’s going on, do you think that means Shiro has something to do with it too? Like, maybe it’s related to something that happened while he was in the Galra prison after Kerberos?”

“I dunno.”

“Think he’ll be up for trying to figure that out? If something that happened during that year could have a connection?”

“I dunno,” Lance repeated.

“He definitely knows the most about how Hag-whatever operates out of all of us. Although how much detail does he know about the sort of work she was doing? Like, what all experiments she was running?”

“ _Hunk_ ,” Lance said, leaning toward him to intently meet his gaze. “ _I don’t know_. I’m even more lost than you are. We’re gonna have to wait on Shiro if you want answers.”

Hunk nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry.” He turned his gaze back toward the oven. “I wonder if Shiro might need some comfort food too.”

“I kinda think we all do,” Lance answered.

The two of them waited out the next few minutes of the timer before pulling the cookies out of the oven. Hunk fanned them with a potholder to get them at least cooled down enough to be able to touch them without burning fingers off, and Lance went to get a plate down from the cabinets. “I’m gonna bring some of these to Shiro,” he said. “Whatever he doesn’t eat, he can pass along to Keith.”

“Sounds good,” Hunk said as he helped scoop some of the cookies from the tray onto the plate.

Lance set off with the plate in hand to go track Shiro down. He went to the living quarters to knock at the door of Shiro’s room first, and when he didn’t get any response, went wandering, ducking his head into the paladin’s lounge and the training deck in his search.

He eventually came across Shiro in the med bay. He was sitting on the ring of steps in the center of the med bay, leaning across several stairs and looking to be resting. Lance knocked at the edge of the doorway to get his attention, and Shiro looked over, blinking tiredly. “Hey, Lance,” he said.

“Hey,” Lance replied, shifting his weight on his feet. “Uh, Hunk made cookies,” he said, holding up the plate. “One hundred percent scaultrite-free, probably.”

Shiro patted a space on the step next to him, inviting Lance to join. “Tell him thanks,” he said.

“Will do,” Lance replied. He crossed the room and settled himself onto the ground next to Shiro, then passed him the plate. Shiro picked one cookie up to nibble at it. “So, uh, what are you doing in here?”

“Waiting on Keith,” Shiro answered, nodding toward the door that led to the infirmary’s sleeping quarters. “Coran gave him something to help him sleep after he took care of his own nosebleed. Kicked in a little while ago. I just, uh, you know. Didn’t really want him to wake up in a new location with no one around.”

Lance nodded. “The cookies are for him, too, by the way,” he said. “Once he’s up for them. How, uh, how’s he holding up, by the way?”

“He’ll be okay,” Shiro said after a pause. “Eventually. At the very least, he’s basically fine physically aside from those scratches.”

“And, um, non-physically?”

Shiro let out a slow breath. “I don’t know. He might be all right again once he wakes up again? He was shaking pretty bad all the way here, and – and he started mumbling to himself a lot when we got to the med bay, didn’t stop until the sleep aid started taking effect.”

“What was he saying?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, shaking his head. “He was too quiet. I don’t think he even realized he was talking. He wasn’t really all there.”

“Oh.” Lance bit the inside of his cheek and looked down at his feet.

Shiro sighed and brought his hand up to run through his hair. “We shouldn’t have done the mind-meld.”

“What?”

“It was – we shoudn’t have done it. We shouldn’t have gone into his mind like that. It was an interesting idea but we shouldn’t have tried it. Keith was right, it wasn’t harmless at all.”

“Hey,” Lance said. “None of us knew that was going to happen.”

“Keith knew. Right from the start I think he figured something would go wrong. And he hated having that headset on. I didn’t think… God, I wasn’t thinking. I – we were all just focused on getting answers, weren’t we? And I thought Keith just needed to be talked through his nerves, have some support around. I should’ve – I should’ve caught on.”

“Shiro,” Lance said firmly. “You couldn’t have known it was as bad as it was. And besides, Keith agreed to it. He said he _wanted_ to do it.”

“Yes, but he wouldn’t have said that if we hadn’t pushed him so hard about it.”

Lance frowned, shrinking back a little onto the step where he sat. Shiro had said ‘we’, not ‘I’. Which meant that he at least partly blamed Lance for this. He wasn’t completely wrong, Lance had helped to guilt Keith into wanting to do the mind-meld, but it still hurt. It wasn’t as if he’d meant any harm, or had done anything Shiro wouldn’t have approved of just a few hours before. Maybe in hindsight, he should have caught onto the warning signs, but Keith had been nervous and uncomfortable about _everything_ since he’d arrived on the ship. How the hell were any of them supposed to know this hadn’t just been more of the same?

He took a deep breath. “Look, I know things didn’t go so great, but, it’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. Well, maybe Coran and Pidge’s fault for coming up with the idea.”

“Lance,” Shiro said, in that about-to-lecture voice.”

“I’m kidding,” Lance said holding up his hands. “But, seriously, I know you feel bad, and I do too, but, we hadn’t meant for it to go down like it did. Don’t beat yourself up over it, all right? And hey, at least we, uh…”

He trailed off when he realized Shiro wasn’t paying attention to him, and instead had turned his head back toward the entrance of the med bay. Lance turned around to see Allura standing against the doorway, her stance uneven and cautious, like she wasn’t sure whether or not she should be there.

“Hi Allura,” Shiro said.

“Hello,” Allura replied. “You’re, um, you’re here for – for Keith?”

“Yeah,” Shiro answered.

There were a few ticks of silence before Lance cleared his throat and asked, “Want a cookie? Hunk made them. For Shiro and Keith, but there’s plenty. They’re warm.”

Allura hesitated, but she nodded and slowly approached Lance and Shiro, leaning down to pick a cookie off the plate and then straightening up again, but she simply held it in her hand instead of eating it. Shiro went back to munching at his own cookie as Allura stared pensively at hers.

Finally, after a long moment of silence interrupted only by Shiro’s soft chewing, she spoke up. “How is… Coran?” she asked.

Shiro raised a brow. “Coran?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Coran. I was, um, concerned. About what happened, with the mind meld.”

“You were concerned,” Shiro repeated slowly. “About him, uh, hurting his nose?”

“Right. That.”

Shiro gave her a steady and appraising look before replying, “He’s not exactly great, but, better than before. He stopped… bleeding. But I think he’ll probably need some space for a while. He’s still on edge. And just worn out. He’s asleep now.”

“Of course.” Allura looked over toward the doors of the sleeping quarters, biting at her lower lip, before she asked, “Does he, er, does he know that we didn’t intend for that to happen? He doesn’t think we saw that coming, did that on purpose? Because I really – I didn’t know it would get like that. Certainly it’s not something that’s happened before. We’ve all done the mind melds plenty of times and no one else ever, erm, got punched in the nose.”

Shiro sighed. “I honestly don’t know. I’d like to say yes, but, well…”

“But I suppose we haven’t given him all that much reason to think much of our intentions. And I – ” She cut herself off with a shaky breath. “I also guess that perhaps I failed to keep, er, Coran’s feelings on the matter in mind. Although I really didn’t think they were relevant to what we needed to accomplish. And – and we did find out information, so we can’t say that it was a failure, even if – ”

Shiro narrowed his eyes to glare at her before interrupting, “Even if we had to _shatter his nose_ to do it?”

“Well, I’m not saying – ”

“Because I really wasn’t crazy about that part, Allura. Maybe you’re okay with him getting hurt by us, but I’m still actually feeling like maybe that was a _bad thing_.”

Lance swept his gaze back and forth between the two of them as Allura winced. “Hang on,” he said. “Just so we’re all clear, are we actually talking about Keith right now?”

“Yes, Lance,” Allura sighed.

“Okay, cool, just making sure. Do you want me to go, or…?”

“No, no, it’s fine, Lance,” Allura said with a wave of her hand. “And, er… you’re right, Shiro.”

Shiro blinked up at her, bemused. “Wait – I’m right? About, um – ?”

“About Keith. About him not intending to harm us in any case.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know what exactly was going on with his mind, or, his memories. It’s unlikely the mind-meld machine malfunctioned, at least not significantly enough to have caused that sort of glitch, so the explanation must be in Keith’s head. I don’t know what exactly. Likely, the memories he showed us were manufactured, or altered, or corrupted in some way, and I don’t know to what end, but it would explain why the machine didn’t seem to know how to work with them. So there’s still a possibility of him having something in his mind that could be used against Voltron, or some sort of sleeper agent mechanism buried in his head.”

“But…?” Shiro prompted.

There was a resigned acceptance in her sigh before she continued, “But, it does seem that if there is malicious intent behind whatever is happening… it’s unlikely that the malice is Keith’s. I don’t believe being assaulted with those memories would have affected him nearly as badly if he were aware that they were there and what their purpose was.”

“So, basically, he’s not a spy?” Lance asked.

“It seems doubtful,” Allura said with a nod. “And if he is, then, well, it seems that he would be an unwilling or unknowing participant.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear that you think that,” Shiro said.

Allura crossed her arms tightly over her chest and dropped her gaze, but it didn’t seem to be defensive or angry. More like she was curling in on herself, almost the way Keith so often did. “Look, Shiro, I know that I – that this is a very difficult situation and that my methods of dealing with it may been, um, a little less than ideal.”

“Mm-hm.”

“And, well, we’re going to be going over all that’s happened and needing to find some explanations, especially in regards to the elements we witnessed in the mind-meld. And – and Keith is still going to take some getting used to, and – ”

“Allura,” Shiro interrupted, “What’s your point?”

She took a deep breath. “My point is… I _do_ want to help. I do want this to be better. I know you may not believe that of me, and Keith certanly won’t but – but I do. So, er, from this point on, if I, er, if I seem to be crossing any sort of line or not handling something well in regards to the whole Keith situation, then…” She finally lifted her head again, and looked at Shiro, her expression steady, beseeching. “You can tell me. I _want_ you to tell me. I – I would like for things to go better than they have been. I would like to try to make this work.”

For a long, long moment, she and Shiro just stared at each other, before, ever so slowly, Shiro nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. And I, uh, I’m sure Keith will be too.”

“Good.” Allura uncrossed her arms and cleared her throat again. “I’m going to go see if Coran needs anything. You’ll, er, you’ll update me if anything happens with Keith?”

“Will do,” Shiro said.

“See you later, Allura,” Lance said, lifting his hand in a wave good-bye. Allura returned the wave and turned on her heel to stride back out toward the hall.

“By the way, Shiro?” Allura added, turning back to them on her way out.

“Yes?”

“When Keith’s up and about again, could you tell him that I – ” She paused to clear her throat. “That I, er… hope he enjoys his cookies?”

Shiro gave her a small smile. “Yeah. Sure, I’ll pass along the message.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it, guys! I made something good happen in this fic! Look, no one's even crying or anything!
> 
> Of course, we shall soon return to our regularly scheduled angst programming, but enjoy the little break while it lasts.


	12. Chapter 12

Whatever Altean sleep-aid Coran had given Keith certainly seemed to be doing its job. Their guest slept soundly through the rest of the day, and then through the night. Shiro maintained his vigil in the med bay, the other paladins taking it in turns to bring him food, since he didn’t seem to want to duck out for longer than it took to take a bathroom break, definitely not long enough for him to want to sit through a full meal.

Lance was on room-service duty for bringing by breakfast the next morning, and he arrived into the med bay to find Shiro still perched where he had been all this time, stretched across the steps at an angle where he could see into the infirmary, but this time with his head lolling onto his chest in an almost-doze. Lance sighed. The others had told Shiro that he needed to get some rest, but he’d insisted he was fine. Apparently in his head he was the only one who could taken on the responsibility of being present when Keith woke up.

Shiro was a good leader, but he really needed to learn how to delegate.

With plodding footsteps Lance made his way over to Shiro, who didn’t so much as look up at his entrance. Lance set the breakfast tray down, and, when he still received no reaction, grabbed up the spork, backed up, and stretched out an arm to poke Shiro in the left shoulder with it, before jumping back to ensure that he was out of the range of any limb that might retaliate.

Shiro did wake up and fling his arm out, purely on reflex, but it was too haphazard a swing to have done any real damage even if Lance had stayed right next to him. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes before turning around. “Lance?” he asked.

“The one and only. Been staying up all night, have you?”

Shiro brought his hand up to rub uneasily at the back of his neck. “Well, I kinda figured Keith would have woken up by now…”

“So, what’s your plan, just stick around doing nothing until he does?” Lance asked.

“I’m not saying it’s ideal, but it’s probably necessary.”

“Dude, you’re not his bodyguard. And you’re not doing him or yourself any favors by staying up all night worrying over him. Keith’s getting a peaceful night’s sleep; you should too.”

Shiro shook his head. “I appreciate your concern, Lance, but – ”

“But nothing. I’m making an executive decision as your right-hand man: it’s now officially your nap time. You’re about to fall asleep anyway, might as well do it in the comfort of your own bed.”

“I really don’t want Keith to wake up alone after yesterday. Don’t know whether or not he’ll still be shaken over it.”

“So I’ll watch him while you get some sleep,” Lance said with a shrug. “All right? You go to bed, I’ll babysit him for a couple of vargas.”

“Lance – ”

“Look, if he wakes up, I’ll let you know right away, okay? You won’t miss anything important.”

Shiro still looked uncertain, so Lance brought his hand up to hold over his heart. “Paladin’s honor, Shiro. I’ll be a good boy, I promise.”

With a sigh of resignation, Shiro stood up. “Fine. But only for a couple of vargas.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s all,” Lance agreed with a nod. And as Shiro left the med bay, he shook his head, wondering if Shiro had always been this much of a worrywart and it had just escaped his notice up until now.

For a moment, Lance hovered over the spot where Shiro had been lying on the steps, wondering if he shook just slip into his place, but he decided against it. It would be more convenient to keep an eye on Keith closer up, in the actual sleeproom. So that’s where he went, slowly taking a seat in a cot nearby the one Keith was laid across with a blanket draped over him, face half-buried in his pillow.

Lance didn’t figure he’d actually need to do anything but watch. Keith looked to be pretty deeply asleep, definitely asleep enough to hold for another couple of vargas if he’d slept this long already. The rise and fall of his chest suggested that his breaths were coming a little faster than what was typical for a peaceful sleep, but he wasn’t mumbling or squirming like he had been last time Lance had seen him asleep, so he didn’t think much of it. Instead he simply watched, keeping a steady eye on Keith and tracking his somnolent breaths.

After about a quarter of a varga, though, it occurred to him why Shiro had chosen to watch at a distance: he was kinda starting to feel like a creep, watching someone sleep. Figuring he’d go back out to main room of the med bay to wait, Lance got up from his cot, only to wince at the creak it let out at the sudden shift in weight and look toward Keith. Unfortunately, the sound seemed to have made its way to Keith’s ears. He scrunched his face up tightly and started to roll over, letting out a soft groan.

Crap. Naturally,  _naturally,_  he would wake up while Lance was on duty. He shoved his hand into his jacket pocket to grab at his tablet, ready to whip it out and send Shiro a wake-up message if Keith looked like he was going to start panicking again.

Keith let out another grunt and gradually stretched his legs out before adjusting the angle of his head on his pillow, movement starting to flutter beneath his eyelids. Oh-so-slowly he peeled his eyes open and glanced up at Lance.

“Nice to see you awake,” Lance said conversationally.

Keith furrowed his brow, eyes still on Lance. “’Wake?” he croaked out in a breathy voice.

“Yeah. Awake. Like, opposite of asleep.”

Keith rolled his body over a bit so that he was looking straight up at the ceiling. “I was ‘sleep,” he mumbled.

“Uh, yeah.”

“I was…” Keith started, then he trailed off as if he’d forgotten that he was talking.

Lance frowned at Keith’s slurred and unfocused speech, then his eyes widened as something occurred to him. The mind-meld, if it had been malfunctioning – could it have possibly caused brain damage? Oh, shit, shit, shit, if they’d actually given this guy  _brain damage_ , he would never be able to live with himself. “Keith?” he asked, trying to keep the panicked edge out of his voice. “Are you – is your head feeling okay?”

Keith closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose before he answered, “No.”

Lance fought down the nausea threatening to boil up in his gut. “What, uh, what’s wrong specifically?”

“Hurts like fuck,” Keith groaned. “Why the hell’re you in my room?”

Oh. Okay, maybe he wasn’t brain-damaged, just grouchy. “We’re not in your room, Sherlock,” Lance said. “We’re in the infirmary.”

Keith opened his eyes back up and peered curiously at his surroundings, before turning his gaze back to Lance. “I was asleep?” he asked again.

“Yeah,” Lance answered. In most circumstances it really got on his nerves when Keith repeated questions that had already been answered, but right now he’d let it slide, as Keith wasn’t exactly in the greatest headspace at the moment. “Yeah, you were asleep.”

“How long?”

“’Bout a quintant and a half.”

Keith hummed thoughtfully, not seemingly particularly fazed about how long he had been out, before asking, “Where’s… where’s Shiro?”

“He’s asleep,” Lance answered. “He needed to get some rest. Wasn’t easy to talk him into it, by the way. He really wanted to be there when you woke up. So, take that as a compliment, I guess.”

“So why’re  _you_  here instead?”

Lance couldn’t help but scowl. “I told you, he needed to sleep, so someone else had to keep an eye on you, make sure you were okay when you woke up, and I tagged in. My sincerest apologies if I’m not the beautiful face you wanted to wake up to, but also, tough nuts, I’m all you got.”

“Fine,” Keith bit out, and then he went quiet again, his expression falling back into one of contemplativeness. “Lance?” he asked after several ticks.

“What?”

“We did the mind-meld, right?”

“Yeah, we, uh, we did the mind-meld.”

“Did it work?”

Lance wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. On the one hand, they did manage to get some new information regarding what may have happened to Keith, and Allura and Shiro did seem to have started on the path to reconciling their differences after the mind-meld fiasco. On the other, the number of questions they had had increased more than the number of answers, the information they got wasn’t a whole lot to go on, and Keith was definitely the worse for wear after it.

“Do you remember what all you showed us in the mind-meld?” Lance asked instead of deciding on an answer.

“I… think so,” Keith said slowly. “There was – I showed you stuff with the Blade and when I got captured, and then – and then the other stuff, that was new. The commander, she, uh, she mentioned the royal warship. And I think – I think there was a lab, and I was on a table, and someone – ” His eyes widened. “The witch. Zarkon’s witch. She was there, wasn’t she, right at the end?”

Lance nodded solemnly. “Yeah, we’re pretty sure it was – wait, what do you mean, at the end?”

“At the end, like, the last memory.” When Lance still looked confused, Keith huffed. “I was showing you my memories, and then the witch was there, and then I stopped. And I woke up here.”

“So, you don’t remember anything you showed us after that? Or anything you did?”

Keith stared at Lance, then slowly levered himself up with his elbow, wincing as he did. “Lance,” he said, a trace of urgency detectable in his voice, “What the hell did I show you guys? What’d I do?”

“Okay, well, as for what you  _did_ , you kind of had a bit of a freak out after you were done with the mind-meld. Like, you were kicking and yelling at Shiro and Allura to get off of you – they were kinda holding you down so you didn’t hurt yourself and so they could get the headset off of you. Oh, and you broke Coran’s nose.”

He paused to gauge Keith’s reaction, and it wasn’t a happy one. Keith had gone pale, eyes wide, and the arm whose elbow was propping him up was shaking just enough for the movement to be visible. “I – I broke – ” He gulped and cleared his throat. “Is Coran okay?”

“Yeah, he’s all right,” Lance said. “He’s got some sort of splint or something on his nose that he says he’s just gotta wear for a couple of days and he’ll be fine. Altean healing, man. It’s simultaneously amazing and ridiculous.”

A bit of the color came back to Keith’s face, probably in relief that he hadn’t caused too much damage. Then he asked, “And – and the other bit. What did I… show you?”

Lance didn’t answer for a moment, taking a second to examine Keith’s expression instead. His face was tight, tense, brow furrowed and lips pinched, like he was really dreading the answer. “It’s… kinda hard to say,” Lance answered slowly. “It’s possible the mind-meld machine had some sort of malfunction or something, because, well, a whole bunch of stuff came crashing in all at once. It was like – like you were trying to show us like five memories at a time, and you also kept switching them every few seconds. Honestly it was really fucking weird.”

“Oh,” Keith said quietly. “And could you, um, figure out what was going on in any of them?”

“Sort of? I mean, there was some Voltron stuff, and then a bunch of, like, everyday life stuff, like classrooms and cars and – look, like I said, it was really hard to make much out.”

“Oh,” he repeated, and Lance noticed that some of the tension in his shoulders seemed to have gone away, leaving them sagging a little in relief.

“Why, uh, why do you ask?” Lance hedged. “What did you think we were going to see?”

“Nothing,” Keith answered tonelessly.

Lance scowled. “If you want to be part of team Voltron so bad, you can’t be keeping secrets, you know. It’s illegal.”

Keith snorted. “Illegal?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint, but it’s really nothing.”

“Keith – ”

Keith let out a breath. “Lance. Look, I’m not keeping any secrets. But that doesn’t mean I want to share every detail of my life story with everyone, especially if I didn’t even know I was doing it. I just – ” He paused as if thinking of how to say whatever came next, then lay back onto his pillow and looking back up toward the ceiling before he continued, “I’m just not all that fond of everything that’s in my head, is all. Don’t want it spilling out all over the place without my say-so.”

“Oh…” Lance fidgeted in his seat. “Well, uh… I didn’t see anything that, uh, that seemed particularly… it was just a lot of stuff, real fast. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it. So, lucky you, right?”

“Yeah,” Keith grunted. “Lucky me.”

Lance chewed idly at his bottom lip and watched Keith as he lay there, gaze to the ceiling, before he finally spoke up again. “And, um… Keith?”

Keith’s head didn’t leave the pillow, but he turned it so he was facing Lance again. “Yeah?”

“I’m – I’m sorry.”

Keith frowned, brow furrowing again and genuine confusion in his eyes. “For what?”

“For – what do you mean, for what? For the stupid mind-meld, that’s what. I pushed you, and it didn’t end well, and, well, I feel bad about it. So, I’m apologizing. Sorry about the stupid mind-meld.”

“You kinda suck at apologizing,” Keith said, expression morphing into a scowl.

Lance sighed. “I know, I – it’s – it’s a stressful situation, okay? And we should’ve, ah, we should’ve, like, taken  _your_  stress into account more, I guess. And, look, I want you to know, I – we – didn’t mean for that to happen, okay? We didn’t know things were going to go cuckoo bananas like they did. I wouldn’t have tried to talk you into it if I knew that was going to happen. I mean, okay, yeah, in retrospect, I just probably shouldn’t have tried to talk you into it, period, that was – but, ah, well…” He trailed off with a shrug.

Keith blinked up at him for a few ticks before quietly replying, “I know.”

“…What?” Lance said, raising a brow. “What do you know?”

“That it wasn’t on purpose. Not really the sort of thing Voltron does. Not even Allura, no matter how much she can’t stand me…” He set his arms and sluggishly pushed himself back up into a sitting position, before continuing, gaze fixed firmly on his knees, “I know you guys. I just – ” He grimaced and brought a hand up to press against his head, closing his eyes.

“You all right?” Lance asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I – the headache just flared a bit. I think – I think it might be a migraine. Damn it.”

Lance nodded. “Well, I guess that makes sense, all things considered. Hey, do you, uh, do you want me to go fetch Shiro, bring him over to visit? Or, I think there might still be some breakfast out, so I could grab you something to eat. Oh! Shit, nearly forgot, Hunk made cookies. We saved some for you, to have after you woke up. So, hey, cookies for breakfast, every kid’s dream. You want me to bring them over?”

Keith took a moment to think it over before he started to shake his head, but he quickly stopped the motion and just replied, “No,” instead.

“Aw, come on, man, you gotta get some food in you. Don’t know if you knew, but Hunk’s worried about your diet. I’m pretty sure he wants to take over the role of mother hen for you, and if his version of being a mom includes force-feeding you cookies, then so be it. Might as well just oblige him.”

He hadn’t noticed the grimace forming on Keith’s face until he finished talking, and he frowned at it. Great, he’d said something to upset him again. And as usual, he had absolutely no idea what it was that could have bothered Keith. Unless he’d had some sort of traumatic childhood experience involving cookies, which seemed unlikely. “There something wrong with cookies?” he asked.

Keith looked over at him again, face back to neutral. “No, that’s not – I didn’t mean – I don’t want you to  _bring_  them. I – I want to, um, I want to go with you. To breakfast, I mean.”

“Oh. Why?”

“You think the others’ll still be in the kitchen?”

“Uh, probably.”

“Right. I just – I just want to get it over with. Talking about the whole mind-meld incident. If the whole group’s there, now’s as good a time as any. So, let’s go, I’ll face the music.”

“Keith,” Lance said as Keith struggled to swing his legs over the side of the bed, “I really don’t think you’ll have to worry about getting anything ‘over with’. It’s not like anyone’s mad about the mind-meld or anything.”

“Yeah, but I still – holy mother of  _fuck_ ,” he groaned. He had barely gotten into a standing position before he brought his hands to his head again to grasp it tightly, nearly stumbling right into Lance’s lap as he lost his balance and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Headache?” Lance asked, grabbing Keith’s upper arm to prevent him from simply face-planting right into the floor.

“How’d you guess,” Keith grunted. He straightened up a little and grabbed onto the end table beside the infirmary bed for support. “Come on, let’s head out.”

“Dude, you need to get back in that bed, rest up until your head’s back to normal.”

“No, what I  _need_  is to get back and join the others and try to figure this out,” Keith said.

Lance crossed his arms. “Well, your migraine seems to have other plans, and I’m not helping you get down to the kitchen.”

“Good thing I didn’t ask for your help, then.”

Lance watched with a mild interest as Keith straightened up and took slow, unsteady steps forward, keeping his hand on the edge of the cot for balance. He made it the distance of the bed before he stumbled sideways, and threw his hand out to a wall for support, grimacing as he did, and resting his head up against the wall immediately afterward, taking a little break and gathering a few deep breaths before continuing to edge his way along, making it another couple of yards before needing to rest again, sliding partway down the wall.

It was honestly kind of pathetic to watch. But Keith apparently had a stubborn streak a mile long, and he didn’t seem to be about to let a little thing like history’s worst headache stop him from going to breakfast if he had his mind set on it.

Lance let out a sigh and stalked over to wrap an arm around Keith’s back and hoist him up. “All right, Mullet, lean on me, and try not to throw up on me if you get dizzy.”

Keith huffed, but he obliged, letting Lance half-walk, half-drag him out of the med bay while he kept one hand pressed to his head. “What happened to you not helping me?”

“I’m  _not_  helping you,” Lance said. “I’m helping myself. Watching you flail around like that was starting to hurt me vicariously.”

“Sympathy pains. How sweet.”

“Shut up.” Lance glanced back around the med bay as he and Keith reached the exit, thinking about ducking into the storeroom and grabbing some sort of aspirin or something for Keith, before remembering that he wouldn’t be able to read any of the labels. He would have to ask Coran or Allura to get them.

Fortunately both of the Alteans were there in the kitchen when they entered, Keith panting by this point from the exertion. Breakfast looked to have just finished, since Hunk and Coran were loading the dirty dishes away. Allura and Pidge were still at the table, apparently deep in conversation, and Pidge still had her coffee mug beside her, no doubt empty by now.

The others turned to look as Lance and Keith arrived. Lance cast them a smile; Keith had his eyes closed again as he kneaded the palm of his hand into his forehead. They rounded the table and Lance deposited Keith into a seat at the end, where he slumped over to rest his head against the cold table, burying his face into the crook of his elbow.

Allura cleared her throat as Lance stepped back. “Keith,” she said. “Erm… good morning. How are you feeling?”

Keith mumbled something in response, rendered incoherent by the position of his head. At Allura’s puzzled frown, Lance went to her to lean in and answer on his behalf. “Coran’s nose isn’t bleeding anymore, but apparently it’s very sore, so, careful with it,” he muttered.

Allura looked toward him, baffled. “What?” she whispered.

“Wait, are we not using that code anymore?”

“What code are – oh.” She paused as her face cleared of its confusion. “Of course. At least it’s better than before.”

“Did you say something about my nose?” Coran called from the counter. “Because it’s lovely as ever, thank you very much.” He tapped lightly at his nose, which was covered by a magnificently flashy silver and blue splint that covered his nose all the way up to the glabella and stretched out over his cheeks to hold its place.

“Yeah, we were just admiring it,” Lance said, rolling his eyes, but with a grin. “Hey, Coran, do you have any aspirin?”

“Aspirin?” Coran repeated, tilting his head.

“You know, like pain relief medicine. For headaches. Keith needs some.” Keith lifted a hand off the table in acknowledgment.

“Ah!” His eyes lit up. “Of course, of course! I’ve got just the ticket!” He smiled as he bustled out of the kitchen.

Lance followed him out, remembering that he still had to wake Shiro up and let him know that Keith was back in the world of the living. Shiro must have been taking an especially light nap, since just the sound of Lance opening his door was enough to rouse him, and soon they were both out in the hall again, on their way back to the kitchen.

Coran had somehow beat them back, and was standing beside Keith at the table when they entered, holding a round-bottomed bottle in his hand and pouring some sort of deep-green liquid into its cap. He handed it to Keith, who reluctantly lifted his hand and head to drink it down. Immediately after he did so, his eyes went wide, his nose wrinkled, and he let out a string of hacking coughs that soon gave way to feeble retching. “What – what the hell was that?” he asked Coran between raspy breaths.

“Aspirin!” Coran replied brightly. “You like it?”

“It tasted like ink and vinegar.”

“Ah, but does your head feel better?”

“… A little bit?” Keith answered after an uncertain pause.

“Then it did its job,” Coran said, capping the bottle and turning to Lance and Shiro, who joined the others at the table. “Enjoy your nap, Number One?” he asked.

“Oh, it was a hoot and a half,” Shiro said flatly. “Keith. How are you feeling?”

“Kinda tired,” Keith answered. “Mostly okay.”

Lance snorted. “Don’t let him fool you, Shiro, just a few minutes ago he was moaning like someone had sawed his skull in two.”

Keith winced. “It’s – it’s a bit better now.”

“Well,” Allura spoke up, “Either way, it’s good to see you up and about again.”

Keith frowned at her, narrowing his eyes and backing into his seat as he did. “It is?”

Allura smiled, and it looked a little plastered-on, but it was still the most pleasant look Allura had ever given Keith. “Yes, of course. We were all worried about you.”

“All?” Keith repeated, brow wrinkling. “Wait… _you_  were worried about me?”

The strained smile on her face faltered and fell as Allura sighed. “Listen, Keith. I realize that the two of us, er… got off onto the wrong foot. But I’ve, er, I’ve had some time and opportunity to… think things over. Take a step back and try to look at this situation from a different perspective. And, er, well, I’m beginning to think I may have been, er, a tad out of line with my – my approach to you and your circumstances. I would like to – ” She took a breath. “I would like to apologize for that.”

“Oh…” Keith said. His brow was still wrinkled, and he bit at his lip for a couple of ticks before hesitantly responding, “Uh… thank you?”

“Damn, Keith,” Lance said. “I may suck at giving apologies, but you sure suck at receiving them, don’t you.”

Keith scowled at him, looking ready to retort, but Shiro held his hand up to cut him off. “Actually, I think now’s as good a time as any for him to get some practice in. Keith?” Keith blinked up at him, saying nothing. “I’m sorry as well, and I think I’m speaking for all of the paladins. You told us you didn’t want to do the mind-meld, you made your feelings on the matter clear, and we pushed anyway.”

“Can I just state for the record that I had a feeling something was going to go wrong?” said Pidge.

Lance whipped his head toward her. “Pidge, it was _your idea!”_ he cried.

“I have lots of ideas,” Pidge said with a shrug. “People should know by now not to try all of them. Right, Hunk?”

Hunk shuddered as he took his seat at the table, a plate in his hand. “If you’re referring to Shave-Bot, then yes, I agree completely. Pidge’s ideas can be hit or miss.”

“The point is,” Shiro said. “We’re sorry. We failed to respect your feelings or what you wanted, and that was wrong of us.”

Mumbled agreements and apologies echoed around the table. Even Allura let out a barely-audible “sorry”, keeping her gaze firmly on the table’s surface rather than on Keith. “Apology cookie?” Hunk offered, sliding the plate he’d been holding across the table toward Keith.

Hesitantly Keith reached out and took a cookie, watching the others warily as he took a bite, as if he expected it to be poisoned or something. He chewed silently, swallowed his bite, then set the rest of the cookie down in front of him and softly said, “Thank you. Again.” Lance noticed his face had taken on a slight tint of red. Whether out of embarrassment over all the attention being on him, or pain from his headache, Lance couldn’t say for sure.

“All right,” Allura said, clapping her hands together. “We’re all here and in relatively good spirits, yes?” She was answered mostly in non-commital grunts and mumbling, but barreled on as if they’d all agreed wholeheartedly. “Excellent. Yesterday, the circumstances being what they were, we were unable to have any sort of follow-up to what we witnessed in the mind-meld. Keith, do you still remember the memories that came to light yesterday, and are there any other details that were brought out but you were as yet unable to share.”

“Allura, is now the best time for this?” Shiro asked, frowning.

Keith, though, waved a hand. “It’s fine, Shiro. I want to start figuring stuff out too, the sooner the better.” He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I remember some stuff. Not a lot, but some.”

“Good,” Allura said with a nod. “So we have a starting point to work off of. We have an idea of where we can go from here, where we can find additional information. The problem, of course, will be actually _reaching_ that additional information. By the way, Shiro, are you up to sharing in this discussion as well?”

Shiro raised a brow. “Hm? Why?”

“Because, you’re more familiar with Haggar than any of us,” Allura answered. “And we’re going to have to pool together everything we know about her if we’re going to track her down, find out what she’s up to, and put a stop to it.”

It was silent around the table, every eye staring at Allura as the team wrapped their head around this very suddenly-presented and bluntly-stated plan.

Pidge was the one to break the silence. “Welp,” she said, popping the ‘p’. “This is gonna be fun. Where do we start?”


	13. Chapter 13

Trying to lay out everything they knew about Haggar was, it turned out, an exhausting endeavor. They started small, cataloguing a list of everything they could remember about encounters with her they’d had in the past, trying to recall every they could about how she had fought, what had been present in the locations they’d been in, anything they could recall her saying.

Shiro had run his human hand through his bangs so many times as they talked that the white hair was starting to stick upright. “I don’t know,” he’d told them when asked if there was anything that stood out in what memories he had of his time as a Galra prisoner. “I’m not sure what details would be important here. I didn’t know a whole lot about the experiments she was running outside of my own, and for me, it was all about weaponization. Biologically or mechanically enhancing people, I think as part of a means to look for ways to improve their soldiers. That’s part of what the gladiator battles were for: seeing what the effects of their enhancements were in combat.”

He turned to Keith, who was watching the proceedings with half-lidded eyes, with a frown. “But I don’t know how that would be relevant to what’s happening with Keith. Nothing seems to have been done to weaponize him or anything.”

“Well, we don’t know that for absolute certain,” Allura said. “Keith, have you noticed any differences in your strength or constitution, or any abilities or skills manifesting that you hadn’t had before, or that may have been dormant?”

Keith looked up, roused from his drowsiness by the question. “No,” he answered.

“Have you detected any sort of energy or ire inside you that you can’t identify the source of and that might be able to be directed outward as a means of fighting or defense?”

“I mean, no more so than usual…”

“Look, I really don’t think that’s what this is,” Shiro said. “There were all sorts of experiments being run by the Galra and that I’m sure Haggar had a hand in, a lot of which are no doubt much more likely possibilities. But there were too many for me to glean the details of, or, at least, if I had, then they’re, ah, buried, I guess. Still a lot from those days that I don’t remember, so I don’t think we can get much from that.”

“We could always try a mind-meld,” Pidge said flatly.

“Too soon, Pidge.”

“What about the druids?” Hunk asked. “Those – those magic assistants or, uh, or henchmen or whatever that Haggar had. Would they have been involved in whatever experiments or what have you happened on Keith? Do we know, like, what their abilities are? If we know what they’re capable of, it might help us figure out what they’d use them for.”

Lance tapped his fingertips against the table. “They were helping Hag-lady with the magic-y stuff she used to help Zarkon fight and all, right?”

“And for tracking the Black Lion,” Allura said slowly. “I believe they’d been enhancing Haggar’s range or the lion’s signal or – could that be part of what they’re doing with Keith? Some sort of method of tracking or of, say, monitoring us?”

They all turned to look at Keith, who squirmed in his seat. “I, uh…”

“Wait, I thought you said that you’d confirmed Keith wasn’t a spy,” Hunk said.

“Not willingly,” Allura said, “But there’s still always the possibility of it being outside of his control. If that were the case – ”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Shiro interrupted her. “It doesn’t follow. She never sent Keith to us or anything,  _we_ found  _him_ , and what would be the point in messing with Keith’s head and giving him all those memories? All it would accomplish is making him that much more suspicious to us, and if she wanted Keith to be a manchurian agent, she would have wanted it to be as easy as possible for him to get into our good graces.”

“Hm.” Allura rested her chin in her hand. “That’s true. It’s the mind-altering that’s really throwing a wrench into the works, isn’t it?”

“What if the mind-altering wasn’t a part of whatever his real purpose was for being there?” Pidge suggested. “Like, say, it’s some sort of distraction from whatever was actually going on, and she messed with Keith’s memories so he wouldn’t know what had happened, would think it was something else?”

“Yeah, but why would they give him memories of  _us?”_  Lance asked. “Wouldn’t that just unnecessarily complicate things? If there’s something they want to keep him from knowing, why not just scramble his brain and be done with it?”

“They may have had a reason they would have needed to keep his sanity intact,” Coran said, scratching his chin as he peered searchingly at Keith.

“And what a wonderful job they did,” Keith muttered, then yawned.

Shiro shook his head. “It still not a reason why they would choose to give him memories of Voltron, specifically.”

Allura sighed. “I don’t know how much we’re going to be able to accomplish here without knowing more about her methods. There must be a way to get more information.”

“Well, it’s not like her druids are always right by her side,” Hunk said. “She’s got her work spread out, you know? There was the prison we found Keith in, there was that transport hub where we’d found that store of quintessence. Don’t know how direct the line to her from the prison was, but there were druids right on site over at the hub.”

“Hey, yeah,” Lance said, sitting up straighter as he thought. “So if we could find one of the other locations she’s got her mad scientist stuff set up at, we could, like, catch a druid, find out what it knows and what Haggar’s doing.”

“‘Catch’ a druid?” Pidge repeated, raising a brow. “How exactly do you plan to do that?”

“I dunno. Number-three-coil-spring trap?”

“… Lance, they’re evil wizards, not coyotes.”

Lance threw his hands into the air. “Okay, look, I suggested catching a druid, I got the ball rolling. Someone else has to do some legwork now, figure out the how part.”

“Hunk and Lance do have a point…” Allura said. “Not about the trapping bit, but about her work being spread to various locations. The prison where Keith was held is gone, yes, but there’s bound to be other bases or hubs or ships that are centered on Haggar’s work. If we could manage to find somewhere else where similar work is being run…”

“How would we do that?” Pidge asked. “It’s not like we’ve got any sort of druid-tracking tech to go Haggar-hunting with.”

“Well, there’s always the old-fashioned way,” Coran piped up. “Searching through manpower. Of course, we don’t have as many resources to spare for this level as scouting as would be ideal.”

“No, but it could be a start,” Allura said. “The coalition has been expanding as of late, we’ve got eyes spread out across numerous galaxies. We may not be able to drop everything and go off on search parties, but we could at least get some eyes out.”

“And that stuff can’t keep itself too well-hidden if it’s nearby, right?” Hunk asked. “I mean, we’re talking quintessence and druid magic and stuff like that. That sort of thing leaves residual energy, right? That’s how the Blade have been trying to keep track of Lotor’s forces, after all.”

“Lotor’s forces,” Shiro repeating, furrowing his brow. “Kolivan said they’ve been trying to track a quintessence supply line under Lotor’s watch, and that falls into line with Haggar’s modus operandi if she and her druids have been working with the stuff too.”

“You figure they’re in cahoots for whatever this is?” Lance asked.

“It’s a possibility,” Shiro replied with a shrug. “But right now everything’s sort of up in the air as speculation.”

“Well, at least we have some idea of a step we can take moving forward,” Allura said. “If we could get communication out to our allies and rebel forces regarding keeping an eye out for any potential signs of activity Haggar may be involved in, we’d be able to use anything they find as a point of investigation. And we should ask the Blade about any possibility of a connection between Haggar’s work and whatever they know about Lotor’s activity.”

“And what will we do in the meantime?” Pidge asked.

“What we’ve been doing up to this point, I suppose,” Allura answered. “Keep up our efforts in forming alliances for the coalition, keep abreast of any danger that may require Voltron’s intervention. And wait for information regarding a lead on Haggar worth pursuing.”

“Yay, waiting,” Lance sighed.

“And we’ve got matters directly on the castle to be attending to as well,” Allura continued. “I was wondering, Keith, if you could – Keith?”

She paused and frowned at him, and when Lance turned, it was to see Keith completely conked out on the table, eyes shut and face half-covered by his hair, which had also spread itself out on the table’s surface.

“How long has he been asleep?” Allura asked.

“Keith?” Shiro called. “You okay?”

“I’m sure he’s fine, just sleeping,” Coran said, getting up and moving around the table to lean down with his ear toward Keith. “Yes,” he said with a nod. “Just sleeping. That aspirin I gave him probably made him drowsy.”

“That wasn’t aspirin,” Lance pointed out.

Coran poked Keith lightly on top of the head with his fingertip, and Keith let out a little grunt in his sleep but otherwise didn’t stir. “Hm,” Coran said. “I never am quite sure on the precise dosage to give to anyone who’s not an Altean. Hope I didn’t give him too much of the stuff.”

“Wait,  _what?”_  Shiro gasped, practically leaping out of his seat to join Coran beside Keith. “You might have overdosed him?” He grabbed Keith by the shoulder and shook him. “Keith! Keith, are you all right?”

Keith groaned again, and this time he half-opened one eye and turned and swatted Shiro’s hand away from him before mumbling something unintelligible and rolling back into place. Coran smiled. “Oh good, he’s fine.”

Shiro sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, maybe we should get Keith back to bed for now. Nearly forgot he’s still technically convalescing. Keith? You ready to get up and move?”

Keith yawned widely and, after Shiro gave him another little shake, slowly and reluctantly sat up, blinking woozily. “’m tryin’ to sleep,” he mumbled.

“I know, but let’s do it in your bed, okay?” Shiro said.

Keith shook his head as he shakily stood from the table. “Not my bed. The couch.”

Shiro frowned and turned to Allura, who bit her lip. “Allura?” he said. “Keith needs to get some sleep.”

“Right,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Coran, could you, erm, could you see about – about fixing the programming on his door’s lock?”

Coran nodded toward her with a small smile. “Will do, Princess.”

* * *

The next few quintants in the castle were as normal as possible, all things considered. Sure, there were a few new factors – Keith was slowly but steadily on the mend from the mind-meld-induced migraine he’d been nursing, gradually taking shorter and less frequent naps and being less and less prone to grimacing and rubbing at his temples when he thought no one was looking. And Allura and Coran were spending a lot more time on the bridge, in constant communication with others in the coalition, working out how best to be on the lookout for the sorts of activity they were looking for.

They were interrupted from their time on the castle only once, when Voltron was called to assist a planet in their quadrant that had spotted an oncoming Galra fleet. The fleet had been relatively small, and they’d made short work of it, and it had been a nice way to shake their routine up a bit and give them a morale boost, but Lance did wish that the Galra had attacked during one of Keith’s naps; that way Keith wouldn’t have been awake to tag along into the bridge and watch them leave with that sad, longing look of his that made Lance’s skin scrawl.

Pidge announced a couple of quintants later a mechanical adjustment she and Hunk had been working on and had just finished installing in Green, a modification to the steering mechanisms that she was certain would improve the Lions’ already stellar reaction time.

“Hunk and I want to start adding this to the other lions as well,” she told them as they were finishing up lunch and clearing the table away. “We’ll get Yellow taken care of first, then whichever one of you are ready next. And if you could make sure to get all the routine maintenance for your lions done before we start working on them, that’d be a big help.”

“You could probably do Black next,” Shiro said. “I’ve got nothing on my to-do list this afternoon, so I can go ahead and give her a check-up.”

“That’d be great, thanks,” Pidge said with a nod.

“Hey Shiro?” Keith spoke up.

“Mm-hm?”

“Could – could I lend a hand?”

Shiro paused in the act of setting his dish into the sink to look up and over at Keith, and back at the table Lance could see Allura turning to stare at him as well. “Lend a hand, with Black?” Shiro asked.

Immediately Keith’s face went the slightest shade pinker as he noticed the eyes on him. “Sorry, um, I wasn’t trying to – it’s just, I don’t have anything to do, like, at all, and it’s been a while since I’ve gotten to see any of the lions, and, um – ”

“Sure!” Shiro interruped, nodding and casting him a small smile. “Sure, yeah, I could use a hand on the maintenance?” Keith’s shoulders sagged in apparent relief.

Allura frowned. “Shiro I don’t know if – ”

“After all,” Shiro cut her off, “We all trust you not to cause any damage to the lions or lion bonds, and we’re trying to make your time here more comfortable and give you a greater degree of freedom. Isn’t that right?”

Allura hesitated, but, after glancing to Coran, forced an uncertain smile onto her face. “Right, sorry. Of course, it’s fine – I’m sure it will be fine. You’ll be supervising, right, Shiro?”

Shiro nodded. “Black wouldn’t let anyone else in otherwise. Come on, Keith, you ready?” He wrapped an arm around the younger boy’s shoulder to escort him out of the room and to the hangars.

Lance watched them go before setting his own dish in the sink. He had planned to hit the training deck after lunch, but as he did so, he couldn’t help but recall that had been a little while since he had given Red the tender-loving-care she was due, so he didn’t train the length of his usual full session before deciding to drop it and go do his own maintenance check over on Red instead.

She was pretty close to tip-top shape, Lance was happy to see. A little bit of wear here and there from battles, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed up in a heartbeat. He examined the lion thoroughly, keeping an eye out for anything that would need tweaking, and he became engrossed thoroughly enough in his work not to immediately notice that someone else was in the hangar too. When he did spot Keith, though, he gave him a nod in greeting. “Thought you were helping Shiro with Black,” he called.

“We finished,” Keith replied. “So I, uh, I came by here.”

“Oh. Did you need something?”

“The, uh, the barrier’s down,” Keith said. “Do you – do you think Red would mind if – I mean, would  _you_ mind if I, uh, visited? For a little bit? It’s just, you know, since Allura’s cleared me to be allowed in the hangars, I just thought…”

Lance looked uncertainly up toward Red’s face in silent question. Making sure that Red was feeling in a welcoming mood – but not  _so_  eager to have visitors that it would make things weird. Once he was pretty certain Red was at the correct level of hospitality, he nodded. “Sure, uh, come on over,” he said.

Keith mumbled a thanks as he neared Red, cautiously approaching her front paw and laying his hand on it to test the waters before climbing up fully to sit on it. Lance wondered at first if Keith was going to try talking to her, or maybe try petting her or something like Lance sometimes did, but instead he seemed perfectly content to just sit and stare up at her. It was fine at first, but after several doboshes on end, it was starting to freak Lance out a little, get on his nerves.

He cleared his throat to get Keith’s attention. “So, um, what are you doing? Trying for a mind-conversation with her? Because, uh – ”

“No,” Keith said, shaking his head. “No, I was just – just thinking.”

“About what?”

Keith didn’t answer at first, instead taking a moment to adjust himself so his feet were up on the surface of the paw and his head was leaning against Red’s leg. “About… I dunno. The lions, I guess? I… it probably goes without saying that I, uh, I – I miss, you know, having – having that… connection, to them.”

Lance frowned and looked up toward Red’s face, toward the currently-darkened massive yellow eyes and the sleek head around it. He could detect that faint thrum of Red’s energy that was always there in the background, that warmth and esteem that was always strung between them, that connection that pieced them together. He tried for a moment to imagine Red sharing that thread with Keith instead.

He couldn’t picture it.

“Hey, Keith?” Lance started tentatively, clambering down from where he’d standing on Red to go sit on her paw next to Keith.

“Yeah?”

Lance took a deep breath. “Look, I swear I’m not trying to be hurtful or anything, I just – I just want to make sure that we’re all on the same page. With, uh, with everything that’s going on. It’s just that, uh, Allura and Shiro were talking about how, like, your memories weren’t appearing the way memories are supposed to and all. And how it looks like the memories you showed us were corrupted or taken from some other source or – or fake?”

He paused to give Keith a chance to respond, but he didn’t say a word. So Lance continued. “And so even though you technically remember all that stuff about Voltron and us and the lions and all, it’s looking more and more like those memories you have aren’t… real? And we still don’t know how they managed to pull it off, or how they got as close as they did to reality, but – but they’re definitely – they’re not real. I know they probably feel real, and that’s gotta be confusing as hell and, uh, and difficult to get a handle on, but… it’s kind of important that you understand that.”

Keith bit down on his bottom lip, worrying at it for a few seconds before turning, not to Lance, but to look back up at Red. “Yeah, I get it,” he mumbled. “What’s your point?”

“My point is – well – ” Lance sighed and lifted an arm to put on Keith’s shoulder, a close facsimile to a gesture of comfort. “You can reminisce and all if you need to, if it’s helping you work through this whole thing or whatever. But I really need to make sure you know… Red is not your lion. She’s not. She’s mine. And Black is Shiro’s, and – and – you understand that, right? Like, you accept that? I know you think you have this bond with them, and I’m sorry, Keith, I really, really am but… you don’t. And I just need to make sure you understand that, because – because this’ll all probably just be that much more difficult if you don’t.”

For a long time Keith said nothing, and when he finally answered, his voice was just a notch higher than usual, just a little strained. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I understand.”

Lance sighed. “Okay. Okay, good.”

“It’s – it’s a lot to have to wrap my head around. The idea that… that the things I remember might not be… that they’re not  _mine_.” He dropped his gaze down to the metal of Red’s paw, and he stroked his hand along the surface. “They sure as hell feel like my own.”

“Right,” Lance said. “But – ”

“I know,” Keith snapped, a trace of venom very suddenly finding its way out of his voice. “I – I know they’re not. I’m just… saying what they feel like.”

He started tracing his finger in circles against Red’s paw. “Hey Lance?” he said. “Can I ask you something? And – and it’s okay if you say no.”

“What is it?”

“Just, um… would it be all right if, while I’m still um, adjusting, and everything, to – to all of this, if – if I could still pop in and visit Red sometimes?”

“Oh,” Lance said, fighting back a grimace. “Oh, um, well, it’s – it’s not that I, uh, that I don’t – that I don’t appreciate your, uh, circumstances, and all, but – but Red is, I mean, she – ”

“It’s all right,” Keith mumbled. “I told you, you can say no.”

“Right. Right. Um, I mean, it’s nothing against you or anything, I’m, uh, I’m sure you wouldn’t, um, that you’d be fine with her, it’s only, you know, I want to keep – me and her – I just – ”

Fortunately, right then he was saved from having to struggle through trying to figure out a polite way to say _‘hands off my fucking lion’_ by a beeping in his jacket pocket. He pulled out his communications tablet to see that Allura was sending out a message to the group at large.

 _“Paladins,”_  she said.  _“I need you all on the bridge, now.”_

 _“What is it?”_  came Shiro’s voice.  _“Is something wrong?”_

_“Quite the opposite. I believe we may have found a lead.”_

Lance looked up, and Keith, who had been staring at the tablet in Lance’s hand, did the same. The locked gazes for a tick before, without further hesitation, they both shot to their feet and began racing out of the hangar and toward the bridge.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the author strolls into Archive Of Our Own five months late holding Starbucks.

“How’re things looking, Pidge?”

_“Well, the intel holds true. We’re definitely getting readings in line with the ones the rebels sent us.”_

“And you’re sure it’s quintessence?”

_“Either that or the most bizarre new form of static cling ever discovered.”_

Allura sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she frowned up at the screen where imaging from the Green Lion’s viewport was being projected back into the bridge, where the other paladins stood gathered, watching intently. “Pidge,” Allura said, “What have I told you about being sarcastic when reporting to base?”

_“Hard to say, princess, I tend to tune you out when we get onto that topic.”_

“Pidge,” Shiro said, tone scolding.

_“Sorry. In any case, there’s definitely readings of quintessence on this ship, but it’s also definitely… different.”_

“Different how?” Allura asked. “Different like the quintessence the Blade’s been trailing?”

 _“No, see here.”_ The view on the screen switched to Pidge’s helmet cam, and she pointed to a readout on her dashboard. _“There’s no pattern to the energy surges. The quintessence that the Blade found in connection to Lotor had different energy readings than the ones we have on record from that druid lab we found way back when, but they were still_ regular _. This stuff here, though, it’s like - it seems… unstable.”_

“Maybe it’s because you’re moving around in Green,” Lance suggested. “Like, you know, you’re getting closer and farther to the ship, so the reading’s weird?”

 _“No, Lance,”_ Pidge sighed. _“That’s not it.”_

“Well, we can’t know that for sure until - ”

_“Yes, we can. Distance doesn’t affect how Green picks up quintessential residue. She releases a signal toward a pre-calculated epicenter on the targeted area that remains completely static regardless of - ”_

“Never mind,” Lance said. “I just decided you know what you’re doing.”

_“Oh, goody, I feel validated.”_

“Could whatever’s creating the quintessence energy be being actively altered right now?” Shiro asked. “Perhaps there’s a working lab in that ship?”

“Doubtful,” Coran spoke up. “Not with that make of ship. It’s a cargo ship, for one thing, but beyond that, it looks to be modeled after the Galra’s old Lexell-N-13 ships. Wonderful stability in the engine room, but notoriously terrible at maintaining internal gravity levels. A dreadful place to be doing precision lab work.”

“So, what are we looking at, then?” Allura asked.

“Transporting supplies, no doubt,” Coran answered. “Whatever’s leaving the quintessence traces may be what’s being experimented upon.”

“Not sure if that really gives us the greatest well of answers as to what the druids have been up to,” Keith commented from the back of the group. “Not if we don’t get access to their process in action, I mean.” This was the first he had spoken since Allura had told them about the signal the rebel group had picked up. Amid their wormholing to the coordinates and sending Pidge out in her cloaked Green Lion to scout out the ship the rebels had come across, he had remained quiet, intently focused.

“Perhaps not the _greatest,_ ” Coran replied, “But still useful. We can certainly glean information from whatever is being transported, both the cargo itself and inventory logs, and if they’re keeping travel records, we could use those to find out where the ship is coming from and where it’s going - two other locations that would be immense resources to us.”

Shiro nodded. “All right. Princess, your call: are we looking at an infiltration mission here?”

“That would probably be the best course of action,” Allura answered.

Lance lifted his hand in question. “Should we go for hijacking the ship while we’re down there? I’m just thinking, if this stuff important to Witch Lady, probably would be helpful to keep it from getting to checkpoint B, right?”

“Not in this case, no,” said Allura. “If we’re able to get information about the ship’s docking points, we’re going to want to be able to go investigate them afterward. As long as we’re stealthy and don’t impede the ship’s route, they won’t know we’re coming. If we interfere with them though, or if they’re able to send off any communication that something’s gone wrong en route, they’ll have time to clear the evidence. And if that prison was anything to go by, it seems that’s something at which the druids are quite adept.”

“All right,” Shiro said with a brisk nod. “I could join Pidge, and we can go down in Green and try and make our way into the ship.”

“Sounds good,” Allura said. “Lance, be on standby in Red in case they need help making a quick exit. Hunk and I can ready Blue and Yellow in case any shots start firing, and we can regroup once you’re either finished, or if a battle situation erupts.”

“What should I do?” Keith asked as the others started toward their ziplines.

Allura paused mid-step. “What - what should _you_ do?”

Keith nodded. “Yeah. Should I ride down with someone, or do we have any cruisers to spare, or…?”

“Right. Right.” Allura cleared her throat. “Well, actually, er, it - it would probably be very helpful to have an extra set of eyes here on the bridge to, say, keep an eye on - ”

“Uh-huh,” Keith cut her off, and Lance could practically see him physically deflating. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll be helpful.”

Allura sighed. “Keith, this isn’t a matter of you not being helpful, it’s - ”

“I just figured, you know, this is sort of my mission too, isn’t it?” Keith asked. “I mean, we’re - we’re looking into this ship because it’s a lead on, um, my - my, uh, my whole… deal, with Haggar, and I thought - ”

“Keith - ”

“And like I’ve already told you, I’ve got experience with infiltration missions, so I know what I - ”

“Keith,” Shiro said. He had doubled back toward him from his path toward the zipline, and he set his hand on Keith’s shoulder, turning the smaller man slightly to look him in the face. “I promise you, this isn’t anything personal. I’m sure you’d do just fine on a mission. But right now, we just need to do this quickly and efficiently, and that’s going to be more difficult if there’s an unfamiliar element in the mix, you know? We’re, ah, used to the current Voltron dynamic, we know how to work off of it.”

Keith bit at his lower lip for a moment before dropping his gaze and nodding. “Right, sorry,” he mumbled. “I hadn’t thought of - I’ll, uh, stay here with Coran.” Shiro smiled and patted his shoulder before moving away.

“Oh, I’m honored to have the companionship!” Coran said, brightly and just a little too loudly to be perfectly natural, before throwing his arm around Keith’s shoulder and tugging him toward the mission control screens. “Don’t know how many of these instruments you’re familiar with, so let me give you a quick rundown!”

He began an enthusiastic tutorial of the various monitors and buttons, and the other paladins took the opportunity to start toward the ziplines again. Lance shuffled over to walk beside Shiro. “You know,” he whispered. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?” Shiro asked.

“Like, give Keith a whole speech if he doesn’t like an order? I know you’ve never been big on pulling rank, but, I mean, you and Allura _are_ in charge, right?”

Shiro shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt anything. ‘Specially when he’s still not in the greatest state mentally and all.”

“He’s a lot better on that mark lately. It just doesn’t seem - ”

“Gotta split up here, Lance,” Shiro said, gesturing toward the zipline entrances.

Lance huffed out a breath. “Right,” he grunted, parting ways with Shiro and moving toward his own zipline. He could let the matter drop. It wasn’t as if he actually _cared_ about whether Shiro was coddling Keith too much. It just had seemed worth a mention.

That’s all.

He slid down the zipline and into Red’s waiting cockpit, and from there he flew out of the hangar to wait, and it was easy to put any concerns about how Shiro was handling Keith to the back of his mind. Red had a way of keeping him focused during a mission. Lance wasn’t sure if it was just the thrill that came with being in the pilot seat, or if the Red Lion’s own keenness and confidence were contagious. Probably the latter, if he were to be honest. And it was something he wouldn’t trade away for the world.

He waited for the others to get their places situated; Allura and Hunk were flanking Black on the way down so Shiro could move into Green for the infiltration itself, and keeping the lion covered until Shiro could return to the pilot’s seat. Once Shiro had made his move, he tailed Green along back toward the Galra ship, keeping his distance.

 _“Found what looks to be a good entry point over beneath this wing,”_ Pidge said into the comms. _“I can keep Green’s cloaking on and dock her. Lance, keep an eye out on the exterior and be ready in case we need to use a different exit point.”_

“Roger,” Lance said. He started Red on a wide swingaround to the other side of the Galra ship, keeping his eyes peeled all the while for any activity.

_“You got any schematics you can send my way, Coran?”_

_“Got some for the old Lexell-N-13,”_ Coran answered. _“Not sure it will be precisely the same as this ship, but should give you a good guideline.”_

 _“Pass ‘em over,”_ Pidge said. “ _Long as an access point to their security network’s in roughly the same place, I’m good to go_.”

Lance kept his position in the air, and the others were quiet over their comms as they waited before Shiro said softly, _“Disembarking Green now.”_

“Got you on my radar, Shiro,” Lance said, pulling up the thermal imaging scope on Red’s dashboard and focusing onto the entry site Pidge had pointed out earlier, where two bright blurs indicated Shiro and Pidge’s presence. “Think your coast is clear.”

 _“All right, I’ll make my way toward security,”_ Pidge said. “ _Assuming that these schematics are accurate?”_

 _“I’m eighty percent sure that they are,”_ Coran said.

_“Good enough. Okay, Shiro, quintessence reading’s mostly centered farther back along the cargo bay toward the aft fuselage. Start heading that way, I’ll monitor you?”_

_“Already on it,”_ Shiro said.

Lance watched as the two blurs from their heat signatures parted and took off, tracking them until they started overlapping with others on the ship in connecting hallways. At that point he minimized the thermal vision on his dashboard and brought Red around to monitor from behind the cover of one of the ship’s elevons.

 _“At the security bank,”_ Pidge said after a few doboshes, _“How’s everyone holding up?”_

 _“Hunk and I are holding steady out here, Pidge,”_ Allura replied.

“Same here,” Lance said.

 _“Think I’m gonna need a hand, actually,”_ Shiro said. _“Door’s not responding to my arm.”_

_“Shit, hang on, I don’t see any alarm raised or anything, so what did - ”_

_“It didn’t light up red or sound an alarm, it was just unresponsive. Seems like it’s turned off.”_

_“All right, hang on, let me get that powered back up for you._ ” There was quiet for a few moments before Pidge said, _“Uh, Shiro, what door are you trying to open?”_

_“The cargo bay entrance? Why?”_

_“Well, I’m looking, and I can’t find any entrance to the cargo bay.”_

_“What?”_

_“Like, there’s definitely a cargo hold here on the ship, got official schematics here in the security bank, but I can’t… figure out how to get there.”_

_“Could you send those schematics my way, Pidge?”_ Coran asked.

_“Sure thing.”_

_“Pidge?”_ said Shiro. _“If this isn’t the entrance to the cargo hold - ”_

_“Hold on, let me find you on the monitors… yeah, looks like you’re trying to access a liquid hydrogen tank.”_

_“Then how do I get to the cargo hold?”_

_“I’m looking…”_

_“Don’t forget, Pidge,”_ Coran said. “ _You’re also looking for access to transport records and inventory logs.”_ In the background, Lance could hear Keith’s voice softly ask, _“Can I look at the schematics?”_

“ _Yeah, yeah, I didn’t forget,_ ” Pidge said. _“I’ve got two hands, Coran, I can only type so much at once.”_

“ _So what should I -_ ” Shiro started.

 _“Lay low for sec,”_ Pidge answered. _“Look, I’ll - I’ll keep an eye on the cameras while I work my way into their records, Coran can start trying to figure out a way into the cargo hold.”_

 _“I don’t think there is one,”_ Keith said.

A pause, then, “Come again, Mullet?” Lance asked.

_“Well, I mean, there is, technically, but it’s not - look, I recognize these schematics, we infiltrated a ship with this exact same layout once when I was with the Blades, must have been the same model of - ”_

_“Now, Keith,”_ Allura sighed, _“We have been over this. You were never actually - ”_

 _“No, okay, whatever, I wasn’t_ actually _a Blade, but I swear, I know this ship! And you’re not gonna be able to get to the cargo hold, not from inside.”_

 _“What are you talking about?”_ Pidge asked.

_“It’s an added security measure to ensure that only select people have access to whatever’s being transported. You can’t get to the cargo hold from inside, not unless you go completely smashing through some walls. The only way to get to the cargo is through the exterior bay doors, and they locking mechanisms and key codes aren’t connected to the ship’s internal network, so Pidge won’t be able to hack them from where she is.”_

_“Aw, isn’t it so sweet how much the Galra all respect and trust each other,”_ Pidge muttered. _“So what, we’re gonna have to go try to get into the cargo bay from the outside?”_

“Nothing doing, short stuff,” Lance said. “I’ve got the exterior cargo bay doors in my view. Windows all around, right in the line of a laser turret just off the starboard wing, no place to dock Green… there’s no way in Hell you’d ever be able to get in there without being spotted.”

Keith let out a little grunt of frustration before saying, _“Well, then, forget about the stealth, and you can just - ”_

 _“Absolutely not,”_ Allura said. _“Remember, if we give away our activity, we give them the opportunity to clear out evidence wherever the ship is intending to go.”_

_“But - ”_

_“Sorry, Keith, but Allura’s right,”_ Shiro said. _“For now, we may just have to forego the cargo and focus on Pidge’s info download.”_

_“...Fine.”_

_“Well,” Pidge said. “The good news is, that shouldn’t take much longer. Think I’m just about into their primary drive, so if we - ”_ A sudden blare sounded into the comms, making Lance wince and put a hand over his ear. _“Fuck!”_ Pidge spat.

 _“What happened?!_ ” Shiro cried.

 _“Pidge, did you trigger an alarm?!”_ Hunk asked.

_“No, no way, I - ”_

Whatever she said next, Lance didn’t hear. His eyes widened as one of the turrets on the ship rotated toward him. A nudge from Red kept his surprise from freezing him in his tracks, and he had time to grab onto the steering and pull away before a laser blast came shooting his way.

 _“Crap!”_ Hunk yelped. _“They’re shooting!”_

“You don’t say?!” Lance grunted. “Sorry, Pidge, they spotted Red, think that’s what triggered the alarm!”

 _“Shit,”_ Pidge muttered. _“Woulda been nice for you to wait a few minutes more before making your grand entrance, Lance!”_

“Hey, Red is a gigantic robot lion in the sky, there’s only so much I can do to keep her from being noticed!”

 _“Paladins, please!”_ Allura said. _“This is not the time! Pidge, Shiro, get back to Green! I’ll escort Black around so Shiro can make the transfer. Hunk, you’re on defense, get to Lance and stave off any attacks. Coran, prepare the castle for me to return and make a wormhole for us.”_

A chorus of ‘right’s and ‘roger’s sounded through the comms as everyone hastened to comply with the orders. Lance dove out of the way of another blast from the ship before sending one of his own back through Red’s open mouth.

 _“Hey,”_ Keith said. _“As long as your cover’s been blown - ”_

 _“Not really a good time, Keith!”_ Lance shouted as he narrowly dodged another blast.

_“But we can use whatever’s in the cargo hold!”_

_“Keith, we don’t have time,”_ Pidge said. _“I don’t know how long it will take to figure out the locking mechanism on the bay doors, and we can’t - ”_

_“Then forget the locking mechanism, you can get through the doors by force!”_

_“If we wreck the doors or the cargo bay, we’ll no doubt also destroy the cargo,”_ said Shiro.

 _“If you’re careful about where you hit, there will be enough left intact to at least get_ something! _Bring one of the Lions close enough, and - ”_

 _“Even if that is the case, they’ve got weapons mounted right outside the cargo bay,”_ Lance pointed out. _“You try to get into it, you’ll get shot down easy.”_

_“Not if you’re fast and you dodge!”_

_“Enough!”_ Allura said firmly. _“We’re cutting our losses now, and that’s that. This is not up for debate.”_

Keith let out a growl of frustration, and Lance heard a thump in the comms before Coran said, _“Keith, where are you - ?”_ He paused, then, _“Think he left to cool down.”_

 _“Sounds like a good idea,”_ Shiro said _. “We’re at Green, boarding her now. Allura, ETA?”_

 _“Within the dobosh,”_ she answered.

 _“On the bright side, least this wasn’t a total wash,”_ Pidge said. _“Managed to get those transport records opened up before the alarm sounded, so I’ve got coordinates on hand now.”_

 _“Those coordinates certainly would have been more helpful if we’d been able to maintain stealth, but I suppose they’re better than nothing,”_ Allura said. _“We’ll have to - ”_ She stopped as a beeping sounded over the comms, followed by a thoughtful “Hm” from Coran _. “Coran?” she asked. “What was that?”_

 _“Erm, nothing, princess,”_ Coran answered.

_“Coran - ”_

_“Allura, we’ve got visual on you and Black!”_ Shiro interrupted. _“Moving in for transfer now.”_

 _“Right, right,”_ Allura said.

“Feel free to hurry,” Lance said as Red sent another blast of flame toward the ship, “Sooner we get that wormhole opened, the better.”

 _“We’re all more than aware of that, Lance,”_ Allura said.

 _“Hey, guys? Looks like they have reinforcement coming in,”_ Hunk said.

 _“Quiznak, you’re kidding me!”_ Allura said. _“What are we looking at here?”_

_“Just a small cruiser on my six o’clock, but I don’t know if more are intending to follow.”_

_“You and Lance hurry and take care of them.”_

“On it,” Lance said, moving Red so that Yellow was blocking the ship from her before turning to face the new threat.

Just as he was preparing a beam, though, his comm crackled and Keith’s voice sounded into his ear. _“Wait, wait, don’t shoot, that’s me!”_

“Keith?!” Lance cried. “You’re their reinforcements?!”

_“Wha - no! This is one of the castle’s cruisers!”_

_“Keith,”_ Allura snapped. _“What do think you’re doing?!”_

 _“Saving the stupid mission, what’s it look like I’m doing?”_ Keith shot back.

_“You were supposed to stay on the bridge with Coran!”_

_“Whoops,”_ Keith said drily. _“Guess I forgot. Lance, on your eleven.”_

“On my - _hey!_ ” Lance yelped, veering Red away as Keith sped by mere inches from her port flank. “Watch where you’re flying!”

 _“I know what I’m doing, Lance,”_ Keith growled.

“Like fuck you do,” Lance muttered as he turned to watch Keith speeding straight toward the ship. “Hey dumbass, you do realize that’s where the lasers are coming from, right?!”

 _“I’m aware,”_ Keith answered, dodging one even as they spoke, not letting up on his speed for a moment.

 _“I’m heading back toward the castle, wormhole to follow shortly,”_ Allura said. _“What exactly are you - ?”_

 _“I told you,”_ Keith said, _“You wanna get into that cargo bay, you gotta use force.”_

“Keith, you’re gonna get shot down before you get within a mile of that cargo!” Lance shouted.

_“No, I’m not!”_

“Yes, you - oh, for the love of - ” He hastily turned Red to fire at the turret that had been aiming for Keith’s cruiser. “See?! That thing just almost took you out!”

_“But it didn’t!”_

“Yeah, and you got me to thank for that! Now would you just - ” A crash echoed over the comms, and Lance’s jaw dropped as Keith rammed diagonally right into the exterior cargo hold door, leaving a massive dent in its wake.

 _“Keith!”_ Shiro shouted. _“Stop that, you’re going to wind up hurt!”_

 _“I already said I know what I’m doing,”_ Keith said. He started making a wide turn away from the ship, getting back into position to start careening toward it again.

 _“I hope you’re aware that the castle’s healing pods aren’t quite as good at healing corpses,”_ Allura said.

 _“Noted,”_ Keith replied, right before another crash, louder still than the one before it, and this time Keith’s cruiser managed to get through the cargo bay door, the tail end of the ship left sticking out of the vaguely cruiser-shaped hole in the metal.

 _“... Keith?”_ Shiro said. _“Keith, come in! Keith!”_

 _“Oh my God, is Keith dead?!”_ Hunk squeaked out.

 _“I’m fine,”_ Keith groaned. _“Just… just a little winded.”_

 _“Keith, are you hurt?”_ Shiro asked.

_“I’m disemarking for a moment.”_

_“That doesn’t answer my question!”_

_“Hang on, there’s - shit,”_ Keith spat. Blasts started coming through the comms, and when Lance squinted, he could see small flashes of light in the edges of the hole not currently blocked by the cruiser. “What the hell’s going on in there?” Lance asked.

 _“I don’t think the cargo hold likes visitors…”_ Keith said.

 _“Then get the fuck out of there!”_ Pidge shouted. _“Guess the locking mechanism’s not the only security on that cargo.”_

 _“I know, I’m going, I’m going,”_ Keith said, and a few ticks later, the cruiser moved, backing out of the cargo door. A couple of small laser blasts followed him out, narrowly missing the cockpit.

As the cruiser made it out of the ship and started moving away, Lance kept half an eye on it. The vehicle didn’t look to be in the same shape it had been before its crash - only natural, he supposed - and Keith was no longer flying nearly as smoothly as before. The cruiser kept slowing and speeding, and repeatedly lurched to the side before being pulled back onto its course.

 _“Keith, I don’t think you’re ship’s in a good state to be in battle right now,_ ” Shiro said over the comms before Lance could say anything. Seems he wasn’t the only one who noticed the erratic flying.

“ _It’s nothing_ ,” Keith replied. “ _Just some dents_.”

“ _It looks like a hell of a lot more than some dents. If you can’t fly it -_ ”

“ _I can fly it just fine, it’s just a little_ \- ” He broke off to let out a small cry as a shot from the Galra ship caught his starboard wing, leaving him spinning out for a few ticks before managing to find equilibrium again.

“ _Just some dents, huh?”_ Pidge asked.

Keith was silent for a moment before hesitantly replying, _“I, uh… I might need some help.”_

“I’ve got him,” Lance said, resisting the urge to tear his eyes away from the battle long enough to roll them. “Hunk, cover me.”

“ _Roger that,_ ” Hunk said. Yellow made a wide turn to fly between Red and the Galra ship, and Lance sped to where Keith’s little cruiser floated to scoop him up into Red’s mouth.

 _“Thanks,”_ Keith grunted.

“Uh-huh,” said Lance. “Now, what have we learned today about crashing ourselves into bigger ships and expecting to fly off unscathed afterward?”

 _“That you’re too chickenshit to try it?”_ Keith asked, his tone gratingly innocent. Lance scowled and grabbed a joystick on the dash to make Red shake her head back and forth. _“Hey!”_ Keith yelped. _“What are you doing?!”_

“Sorry, Red had an itch,” Lance said.

_“The lions don’t get itches.”_

“And you would know that how, exactly?”

Keith went quiet, and Lance had to grimace to himself a little. Admittedly, that remark had been a bit of a low blow. He opened his mouth with the intent to say as much, but lost his trail of thought when the castle’s wormhole opened up in the sky before him.

 _“All right team, moving out,_ ” Shiro said, and Black led the way through the wormhole, Red and her catch bringing up the rear.

The universe around Lance went eerily quiet as it always did when they went through a wormhole, that sudden transition away from the noise of battle always leaving a ringing in his ears. The silence was soon relieved by a buzz of conversation on the comms, appraising what they’d gotten from that mission and asking what was to be done next.

 _“Keith, are you going to need a pod?”_ Shiro asked as Lance neared Red’s hangar.

 _“Uh, hard to say,”_ Keith replied. _“Think my ship’s more banged up than me, to be honest.”_

_“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to check just to make sure. Coran?”_

_“Right-oh, Number One,”_ Coran said. _“I’ll meet you boys in the hangar!”_

 _“Thanks,_ ” Keith grunted right as Red touched down. Lance lowered Keith’s cruiser to the floor delicately, taking care not to jostle it as a silent apology for knocking him around earlier.

Keith was struggling out of the cruiser as Lance descended from Red’s jaw, and the latter let out a low whistle at the state of the smaller vehicle now that he could get a better look at it. A chunk of the starboard wing had been torn off from that blast it had taken, and the crash had left the forward bulkhead half caved in. “Damn,” Lance said, “If this is what you consider ‘dented’, I’d hate to see your idea of a wreck.”

“It’s… probably mostly cosmetic damage,” Keith said, and Lance turned to him. This was also first time getting a look at Keith, since their communication had been entirely over the comms rather than any video feed, and Lance raised his brow at the other’s appearance. Keith had at some point outfitted himself in a thick, boxy armor and helmet, silvery-white save for pale blue accents on the joints and above the visor, a color scheme Lance recognized as that belonging to the old Altean military uniforms in the castle’s storage. Keith finished exiting the ship fully, pale face grimacing as he planted himself on the metal floor of the hangar. His left arm was tucked into his abdomen, his right arm wrapped around it, and he tilted as he found his footing.

Lance frowned. “Your ability to assess your ship’s damage doesn’t give me much faith in your whole ‘I don’t need a pod’ thing.” Keith just sighed.

The door to Red’s hangar opened then with its electronic whir, and Coran marched in with an authoritative stride. “All right, let’s see what the damage - good gracious!” he said as he approached and got a look at the ship. “That looks like - ”

“Yeah, I know,” Keith said. “I’m sorry. It can be repaired though, right?”

“Nothing’s ever beyond repair,” Coran replied. “But it certainly won’t be a quick job.” He tutted as he stepped in to examine the ship more closely. “You’ve got Hunk and my work cut out for us, haven’t you.”

“Sorry,” Keith said again.

“Well, what’s done is done.” He shook his head before turning back to Keith. “Now, boy, this ship’s not the only thing that took a beating, correct?” He gestured toward Keith’s abdomen. “Come now, let the Coranic have a look.”

Keith slowly moved his arm away, and Lance winced when the left hand came away covered in a splattering of scarlet. Coran pounced immediately, tutting away as he moved Keith’s arms aside and examined the injury himself, so Lance had to step around and crane his neck to see the blood seeping through a seam in the plackart.

“Dear dear,” Coran said. “I assume this was from that little crash?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Keith said. “Kinda wound up thrown into some dented part of the ship’s dashboard. I, uh… there was a little, um, I felt a crack.”

“A rib may have broken through the skin,” Coran remarked. “Let’s see about getting this armor removed, yes?”

“Is everything all right?” a voice called. Lance looked up to see the others at the entrance to the hangar. Shiro was at the front of the group, making his way briskly toward them, and he hadn’t even so much as removed his helmet before coming to check the damage, just having rolled up the visor instead. “Keith, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Keith answered as Shiro stepped in to hover over him at Keith’s side. The others, as they joined, hung back, giving Keith some space.

“Okay, my ass,” Shiro said. “You’re bleeding.”

“Well, I’ve had worse,” Keith said. “It’s not like this is the first time I’ve ever crashed a ship.” He squeezed his eyes shut and sucked a breath between his teeth as Shiro carefully peeled the chestplate from him. “And this one wasn’t even so bad. Yeah, I got thrown, but - but normally I hold up better than this, I swear.”

“Where did you get that armor?” Allura asked, frowning at the chestplate.

“Uh, in the armory?”

“Why did you select this armor?”

“It - it looked like it would fit? Why?”

“Because, this is infantry armor,” Allura answered. “It’s no wonder you got hurt. This armor’s not designed to hold against the sort of impact that would come from a full-bodied high-speed collision.” She lifted her gaze from the armor to Keith’s face, eyes narrowed. “You’re awfully lucky you weren’t hurt _worse_.”

“Good,” Keith muttered. “‘Bout time I got some good luck.” He gasped as Shiro gently probed at the underarmor an inch above the spot where the skin had broken.

“Definitely going to need a pod,” Shiro said grimly. “Keith, honestly, you gave us all a scare with that stunt of yours. If you want to go on missions with the team, you can’t just - ”

“Hey, that _stunt_ got us quintessence, didn’t it?” Keith snapped.

The others paused, all holding still and staring at Keith in silence. “Um… what?” Shiro said.

“The quintessence. Snatched some before whatever security was in the cargo hold started firing on me. It’s in the cockpit.”

Immediately Allura turned and climbed onto the ship, clambering into the cockpit and stretching past the caved-in parts only to soon slide back out. Her eyes were wide as she gazed at the two clear tubes in her hand, each filled nearly to the top with a glowing, pale-yellow liquid.

“Well,” Shiro said softly. “I’ll be damned.”

“You’re welcome,” Keith said flatly.

Allura sighed. “Keith, regardless of whether or not you managed to - ”

“So sorry to interrupt, princess,” Coran said. “I’m in total agreement that Keith’s in need of a nice long lecture, but perhaps it ought to be saved until after he’s had his time in the pod? Shouldn’t be more than a varga or two.”

“Fine,” Allura said. “Get healed up, then we can discuss your… conduct. I’ll take charge of these in the meantime.” She gestured with a tilt of her head toward the vials of quintessence in her arms.

Keith nodded to her as Shiro slid his arm around Keith’s shoulders in preparation to walk him to the med bay. “Coran and I will get that taken care of,” Shiro said. “You three, go ahead and wind down; we can debrief once Keith’s out of the pod.”

The others nodded, and the group made their way out of the hangar. Beyond the door, they separated, Allura off to the bridge, Shiro and Coran balancing Keith between them en route to the med bay, and the rest heading off to the living quarters.

“All right, I’m just gonna say it,” Lance said as soon as Keith was out of earshot. “Anyone else starting to think New Guy is kind of an asshole?”

“Maybe a little bit,” Pidge said with a shrug. “But even you have to admit, he was pretty badass out there today.”

“Badasshole,” Hunk commented, and, at the looks the other two sent him, added, “Sorry, continue.”

“I’m just saying,” Lance said. “Hey, you guys don’t think Allura and Shiro are actually going to let Keith start joining us on missions and stuff, do you? I mean, yeah, he’s all eager for it, and okay, sure, he can pilot, but after that crap he was pulling, can’t imagine he’s much when it comes to, say, following orders and, oh, not almost killing himself.”

“Hard to say,” Pidge replied. They turned the corner into the hallway housing their bedrooms. “Guess it’ll be their call. If nothing else, having him along for missions will definitely make them, um… exciting.”

Lance rolled his eyes as he made his way to his own bedroom. “And isn’t that just what Voltron needs,” he said drily as he opened the door. “More excitement.”


	15. Chapter 15

“So, question,” Lance said. “Is there a way we can start moving some comfortable furniture in here? Couple sofas, bean bags if you got ‘em? And maybe, like, some speakers or a TV or, you know, something to keep people entertained?”

“This is a medical bay, Lance,” Allura said. “Not a lounge.”

“I know that,” Lance said. He arched his back to stretch out before folding his legs and repositioning himself on the steps he was sitting on. “But, I mean, think about how much time we all spend hanging out in here just waiting for people to finish up cycles in the healing pod or wake up from comas and stuff. Wouldn’t it make sense to be more comfortable while we do it?”

“You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be, you know,” Pidge grunted from beside him without looking up from the tablet in her arms.

“Coran said Keith’s coming out in fifteen doboshes and then we all have to meet,” Lance said. “That’s twenty minutes, right Hunk?”

“Yep,” Hunk answered.

“So, now, what am I supposed to do in the space of twenty minutes?”

“A man from Bilhai once did a thousand push-ups in twenty minutes,” said Pidge.

“Yeah, I’m not doing that.”

“Fine, then go sing a four-minute song to yourself five times and stop interrupting my work.”

Lance snorted. “Interrupting your  _work_ ,” he repeated under his breath. He knew full well that Pidge had programmed  _Snake_  onto that tablet, and that’s how she had been spending the past half hour while seeming oh-so-focused on the tablet’s screen.

“Well, I am going to go ahead over to the bridge before we debrief,” Allura said. “See if we got any replies. Lance, if you’re feeling restless, why don’t you come along?”

“Eh, beats just sitting around,” Lance said, clambering to his feet and following Allura out of the med bay. “So,” he said when they were in the hallway. “What ‘replies’ are you talking about?”

“I sent missives out to those groups in our coalition who would have resources to assist us in cargo transport,” Allura replied. “I’m hoping to be able to get a couple of convoys assembled to ensure safe delivery of those quintessence samples.”

“Delivery?” Lance asked. “We’re not keeping them?”

“They won’t exactly be doing much good sitting around in the castle. I’m arranging to send one of the containers to the Blade of Marmora. We’ll have them examine it and see if they can find any connection between the quintessence on the ship we raided and on the strain they’ve been pursuing in connection to Lotor. The other will be sent to Olkarion, for Ryner and her scientists to use in their quintessence research. Hopefully they will be able to determine what might be the cause of those energy fluctuations Pidge observed. Any information either of the two are able to give us could help us to determine what sort of work was being done on the quintessence.”

“Oh,” Lance said, wrinkling his brow in thought as they stepped into the bridge. “So, if they find something out about the quintessence, that’ll help us figure out where Keith comes from?”

Allura let out a sigh before approaching her console. “Honestly? I don’t know, and it seems a bit of a stretch that solving one will solve the other. The only thing we know for certain is that Haggar and her druids have been doing something with quintessence, and have done something with, or to, Keith. Whether the two are connected in any way beyond that, or whether we’d even be able to determine the connection if they are, remains in the air, and considering the scope of Haggar’s work, chances are slim that the connection is there. Still,” she added as she pulled her communication log up onto the holoscreen, “It remains the only trail we have. So until or unless it goes cold… we pursue it.”

“Mm,” Lance hummed, folding his arms and watching Allura’s screen. “Mystery-solving isn’t nearly as fun as they make it look on TV.”

Allura gave him a small smile, “Ah, yes, TV. And on an Earth program, how would they go about ‘mystery-solving’, hm?”

“Well, we’d probably get a talking dog to help us out, for one thing.”

“How, precisely, would that help us?”

“I dunno, morale? Any replies come in?”

“Yes,” Allura answered, her hint of a smile dropping to a frown. “One who currently cannot spare the crafts, one rebel group who can provide some, but we’ll definitely need more to keep the convoy reliably safe. And it seems Puania still does not wish to work with the Blade, and won’t make deliveries to Olkarion because it violates their trade agreement with Ceron KA-6 - although I am certain that this delivery  _would_   _not fall under that agreement’s jurisdiction._ ”

“Why are we even letting those guys into the coalition?” Lance asked.

“They have voinerth ore.”

“Of course.”

Allura sighed again. “I wish I could simply wormhole the castle and make the deliveries myself, but I’d like this done soon, and since we also are going to be occupied checking the coordinates Pidge was able to download, and such a large number of trips via wormhole in that short of time was what wrecked our generator the last time...”

“Not to mention exhausted the hell out of you,” Lance pointed out.

“Yes, well.” Allura shrugged. “Some fatigue on my part ought not be a deciding factor in how we conduct our movements. By this point I’m accustomed to it. We all are.” She turned away from her console and back to him. “Well, I suppose I’ve nothing else to do here now I’ve seen to our replies. Shall we proceed back to the others for the debriefing?”

“Nothing would bring me greater joy.”

* * *

The group gathered in the paladins’ lounge for the debriefing once Keith was out of the cryopod and dressed, once again in a set of Lance’s usual day clothes. Keith had insisted on holding off on the typical post-cryopod shower and meal until after the debriefing - “No sense in keeping all the rest of you waiting,” he had said - so from where he was seated on the couch between Lance and Hunk, Lance could detect the faint formaldehyde-like odor of the cryopod’s juices that he hadn’t had the chance to washed away yet. He tried not to breathe in too deeply through his nose as they debriefed.

Allura gave the rest of the group the same explanation to where she was sending the quintessence as she had to Lance earlier, after a bit of awkward hedging during which she and Shiro tried to thank Keith for retrieving them while simultaneously scolding him for his methods. Keith seemed unfazed, simply keeping his arms crossed and nodding at the appropriate times. Lance did hear him mutter under his breath to himself at one point, something about “the ends justifying the means.”

The debriefing was turned to Pidge next, and she pulled the transportation logs she’d snagged from the ship up onto her tablet, mapping the route the ship had taken. Lance zoned out a little as Allura and Coran started to get into a thorough discussion over which locations the castle should check out itself and which could be delegated to others in the coalition, until Shiro spoke up to ask whether they needed to get this figured out during the debriefing or if they could hold it off for later.

Coran gave them a quick rundown of the damage report from the battle, which fortunately was minimal. Their biggest overhead loss had been the damage to Keith’s cruiser, which, Coran mentioned, would have to undergo repairs soon, as the castle’s vehicle supply was still low and they needed as many in working condition as possible. Beside Lance, Keith curled tighter into himself with a mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve already apologized, my boy,” Coran said, flicking his hand as if brushing the apology aside. “It’s nothing that myself and Hunk cannot care of over the next few quintants.”

“I can help fix it, if you want,” Keith said. “I mean, since I, uh, I was the one to break it in the first place. Told you guys before that I’ve worked with vehicles.”

“Much obliged,” Coran said with a nod. “I’m sure you’ll be of great help.”

“Speaking of Keith’s help…” Shiro said, looking over toward Allura.

“Yes, yes, we were going to get to it,” Allura said before rising from her seat and rejoining Coran at the front of the room. Keith sat up straighter, watching her before sending a curious glance to the others, which Lance answered with an uncertain shrug. “One final item on the agenda before we dismiss,” Allura continued, returning Keith’s gaze. “Things have, of course, since your arrival here at the castle, been fairly up in the air in regards to how you spend your time with us during your stay, as well as how you can contribute to Voltron’s cause.”

Keith fidgeted in his seat as Allura went on, “Recently, Shiro and myself reopened the discussion regarding responsibilities we are willing to entrust to you, and although given the unknown variables of your circumstances I hesitate to declare that we are intending to open to you  _full_  privileges enjoyed under the title of paladin, we do both agree that until we are able to sort out your dilemma and return you to whence you came or, well, however we may end up ultimately resolving the situation, we could probably do with having your time with us made more productive and cooperative.”

No response from Keith, which Lance didn’t blame him for; he wasn’t even entirely sure that he understood what Allura was saying just now. After a pause, Allura leaned forward and continued. “Now, after your performance today, I feel it necessary to tell you now that this is probationary, and that we expect responsible behavior out of you. We need to be sure that you do not intend to go rogue when providing assistance, and your reliability and cooperation toward the paladins is key to - ”

“Hang on a sec - ” Keith said, holding up a hand. “What, um - what exactly are you asking me right now?”

“Basically,” Shiro spoke up from the other couch, “We had been thinking that, while you’re here in the castle, it might be good to have you take part in some of Voltron’s activities. Lend a hand in some missions, join the group training, things of that sort. We’ve gotten to see a bit of your fighting and flying in action, so we know you have the capabilities. So, if you’re up for it…”

For a moment Keith seemed frozen in place, gaping at Shiro, and when he answered, his voice was soft and shaky. “You… you want to me to - to be a paladin again?”

Shiro winced at that, and Allura hastened to say, “Well, no, not precisely, as a, ah, a paladin, by definition, is a pilot of one of the Lions of Voltron, and, of course, we’ve five lions, all already with their designated paladins, but, ah, we - we are open to you taking on some of the responsibilities alongside the paladins in battle situations and certain other matters. Perhaps you could consider it a paladin… apprenticeship?”

Keith nodded mutely as Shiro continued, “Now, like Allura said, this is on a trial basis. We can see how you mesh with the group in training, and for now we’re limiting this to select missions only until we know better where your strengths can best be put to use.”

“And of course, this is a  _privilege_ ,” Allura said. “With conditions. And if we have reason to believe that this is not a position you are suited for or able to handle, it will be revoked.”

“But as long as you don’t abuse it, and as long as you respect orders from myself and Allura in training and in battle, and as long as we agree that you’re a good fit for the team, then there’s no reason why this shouldn’t be a long-lasting - ”

“Yes,” Keith interrupted. “Yes, yes, that’s fine, I - I can do that, I can - I can follow orders, I can be a good teammate, I swear, yes, I - ”

“Now, one more moment, Keith,” Allura said holding up a hand. “The reason we bring this up here and now rather than in private is that it’s important that _all_ of the paladins feel comfortable bringing you into the fold. We need this decision to be unanimous before having you along for training and battles. Shiro and I have already approved the motion, under the conditions we’ve outlined just now, so now…” Her eyes drifted between the remaining three paladins. “Paladins, you are under no obligation either way, but it really must be unanimous if we’re going to go through with this change. Pidge? Aye or nay?”

“Aye,” Pidge answered simply and without hesitation. Lance wondered whether Pidge had been thinking over that hypothetical ‘excitement’ having Keith along on missions would bring, and whether she had determined that it sounded like it’d be worth it. That sounded like the sort of thing Pidge would do.

“Hunk?”

“Aye,” Hunk replied. He nudged Keith with his elbow and shot him a smile. “I mean, come on, by this point you’re practically part of the team already, right? About time we make it official.”

Allura nodded, and all eyes fell on Lance, including Keith’s own intense violet gaze. Something about it set something off somewhere in the back of Lance’s mind, a flicker of… something he didn’t quite recognize, but that was just a little unnerving.

But he shoved the flicker aside, along with any arguments about Keith's recklessness and the fact that they still essentially didn’t have any real goddamn clue who this guy was, and he nodded. “Yeah,” he said, before clearing his throat and repeating more loudly. “Yeah. Aye.”

Keith sagged in relief, eyes shining, and within a fraction of a second Hunk had pulled him into a suffocating one-armed hug with a shout of, “Welcome to the team, buddy!” as the others watched, smiling.

“… Thank you,” Keith said, a hint of color appearing in his face. “I - I just - thank you.”

“Well, now that’s taken care of,” Allura said. “Keith, I expect you up bright and early for the team’s morning group training tomorrow. For now, you are all dismissed.”

“Come along and fetch me once once you’ve showered and eaten, Keith,” Coran said as the group rose from their seats. “We’ll see about getting you fitted for decent armor.”

Keith nodded to him as he made his way out, looking all the while like he was in a bit of a daze, enough so that he seemed to barely notice the congratulatory pats on the back Hunk and Pidge gave him as they left. Lance hung back, waiting for the others to go before tugging on Coran’s sleeve. “Hey, Coran?” he asked.

“Yes, Number Three?”

“As long as you’re getting armor made for Keith, do you think you can go ahead and make him some of his own clothes too? Nothing against him, just, I kinda get a little sick of sharing my wardrobe with him all the time, you know?”

“Oh, but those  _are_  his own clothes!” Coran said.

Lance raised a brow. “What? Did, uh, did you give some of my - ?”

“No, no, I made him some of his own. You two are close to the same size, but not precise matches you see.”

“… Oh.” Come to think of it, Keith  _had_  been fitting better into his clothes lately, but Lance had chalked that up to him regaining his weight and, well, maybe some sort of little outer space growth spurt to account for the height. He hadn’t given it a whole lot of thought.

“Is that all right?” Coran asked, a thoughtful frown on his face. “You all have told me to simply copy your original ensembles to make new clothes, so I had assumed - ”

“Well, yeah, it’s just, you know, they’re - they’re sort of _my_ clothes. It’s, uh, it’s - it’s weird, seeing someone else with - it’d, uh, it’d be like, if Shiro was suddenly going around wearing identical clothes to yours, you - you see how that would be weird?”

“Ah, of course, of course, I should have considered!” Coran said, looking aghast. “You’re correct, of course, that would be  _quite_  upsetting!”

“I mean, you can still use my clothes as, like, a base or something, but - ”

“Yes, say no more, Lance. I’ll get something new whipped up for him posthaste. I must say, my boy, I’m rattled at the fact I hadn’t considered it earlier, simply  _rattled_. Why, if anyone were to know the awkwardness of unintentional fashion matching, it would be I. I don’t know if I ever told you about the day I arrived for a luncheon with a group of delegates from Roglax only to find myself wearing  _precisely_  the same cravate as their most temperamental suzerain. Now, it certainly wasn’t the  _greatest_  amount of bloodshed I’ve ever witnessed at a Roglaxan luncheon, but it still…”

Lance swallowed back a sigh and resigned himself to a stiff smile and a lot of nodding for the next varga as he settled in for another long session of Coran anecdotes.

* * *

Lance’s decision to squeeze some extra time in on the training deck that evening had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Keith would be joining the group training tomorrow. He wasn’t trying to prepare himself in case the two of them sparred again tomorrow, and he was certainly not making sure his shooting eye was honed enough that Keith would have no choice but to admit that, at least in that skill, he was absolutely no match for the paladin.

No, it had nothing to do with any of that. He just had the time to spare and figured he’d make the most of it. So it was on the training deck he found himself that evening, dressed in his paladin armor and ready to go.

 _“Select training level,”_  the computerized voice of the training deck said.

“Oh, I’m feeling daring tonight,” Lance said as he made his way to the center of the room. “Let’s go with level three. Random module.”

 _“Level three selected.”_  A ring of floating training robots ascended from their places in the floor, and Lance grinned. This exercise was one of his favorites, perfect for training his sharpshooter eye.

_“Module start in: five ticks.”_

“All right, go time,” Lance said, lifting his bayard and willing it to its rifle shape. But the familiar sensation of the bayard transforming didn’t come. Startled, Lance stared down at the bayard, which sat innocently in his hand, still looking distinctly un-rifle-like. “Wha - ”

_“Begin.”_

“Wait, hang on, I - ” The training bots cut him off by firing toward him, and he hastened to bring his shield up from his gauntlet. “I’ve got technical difficulties, would you - ”

The shield shook under the blasts from the bots, and with a grunt Lance dove out of their way, giving himself a moment while they reoriented themselves to bang his bayard into the heel of his left hand like an old flashlight. “Come on, work, you stupid - ”

To his relief, the bayard finally gave in and expanded into his rifle, and with a grin, Lance jumped back into the fray. The bots were small targets, and moved fast, but Lance made quick work of them, spending the next few doboshes blocking, dodging, and shooting until all the bots were taken down.

He went another two rounds before, panting, he called a pause on the training module to take a water break. When he did, he let his bayard shrink back into its dormant form in his hand. He frowned down at it as he hydrated himself - his bayard had never done that before. It always responded immediately when he called it forward, never delayed.

That flicker again, as if a tiny part of the back of his mind had had a hint of realization and chosen not to let the rest of his brain in on it. Lance didn’t know what to make of it.

So he ignored it, and he set aside his water pouch and brought his bayard back to form, without having to argue with it this time, before returning to the middle of the deck with a firm, “Resume training!”


	16. Chapter 16

Regardless of the fact that they had all approved of Keith’s inclusion in their training, and the fact that they were already starting to grow accustomed to his presence at meals and in their living quarters, it still felt weird to see him joining the other paladins in the training deck after breakfast the next morning, in full armor, weapon in hand. He stuck out in the sleek metallic colors of the Altean armor Coran had fitted him with, and Lance couldn’t help but feel extremely aware of a new presence in the room, throwing the team’s normal equilibrium off.

Coran, for one, seemed delighted by the addition, and chattered brightly to Keith as he helped him adjust his new armor and stretch out his muscles in preparation for today’s training. “It just will be so much more  _convenient_ , having an even number of people training, you know?” he said. “We can divide evenly into teams, match up for partner drills without having everyone take turns switching out - honestly, in retrospect we should have brought a sixth person on board much sooner, it would have made planning these training sessions so much easier on my end. I wonder if that cow of Lance’s was ever combat-capable…”

“Kaltenecker’s a pacifist,” Lance spoke up, straightening out from his own warm-up stretches and swinging his arms at his sides to loosen them. “Please respect her religious views.”

“Pacifism’s not a religion, Lance,” Pidge said.

“What? No, no, I’m pretty sure it is. I’m positive - hey Shiro, is pacifism a religion?”

“No, Lance.”

“I could have  _sworn_  - ”

“You sure you’re ready to start training today, Keith?” Shiro asked, leaving Lance pouting at the interruption. “You’re looking a little nervous.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Keith answered. He looked down at the sword in his hand. “It’s just… strange, finally getting to hold one of these again. Strange in a good way, though.”

“So your weapon of choice is a sword, huh?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah. My old bayard was - um, I mean, uh - my - I’m - I’m trained in swords. Swords and daggers, those are - those are my things.”

“About time,” Pidge said. “I’ve told them before, every adventuring party worth their salt has at least one swashbuckler in the group. I mean, Allura  _technically_ has a sort of swordy-dagger-thing at the end of her staff, but it’s not the same. I asked her before if she could figure out a way to incorporate some more, you know, swishes and stabs into her fights - for the style points, of course - but she said no.”

“I stand by that,” Allura said. “My bayard form is not designed for that style of combat, Pidge.”

“Yeah, well, Lance’s jacket wasn’t  _designed_  for acting as a bed for space caterpillars, but you don’t see that stopping me.”

“Hang on, what?” said Lance.

“Are we ready to begin?” Allura asked, turning to Coran.

“We should be,” Coran answered. “I’ll go on up to the booth. Keith let me know if you’re having any mobility issues with that armor, and I’ll see about getting it adjusted after training.”

“Will do,” Keith said with a nod.

Coran took his leave, and the others spread out across the center of the training deck, waiting for his voice to instruct them from the observation booth’s microphone. “All right, paladins - and guest - ” he said over the speakers after a minute. “Ready to go? I’m starting you off with some partner exercises against the bots. One of each pair on offense and one on defense. We’ll focus on close combat for now, so your goal will be to defeat your assigned gladiator bot. Shiro, Allura, and Keith, you’re on offense.

“We’ll have the drone bots taking shots at whoever’s on offense, so defense, you’re on shield duty. Protect your partner against any shots from the drones until the gladiator’s taken care. Lance, you guard Shiro; Pidge, Allura; Hunk, Keith. Get in position, we’ll begin in ten ticks.”

The paladins hurried to take their spots beside their assigned partners as the training bots rose up from the floor and out of the walls of the training deck. Lance planted himself firmly behind Shiro, keeping his eyes on a couple of the nearby drones as he brought his shield up from his wrist.

“You good to go, Lance?” Shiro asked from behind him.

“Oh, please,” Lance scoffed. “I could guard you against a thousand of these things and you still wouldn’t get a scratch on you.”

“There’s that confident Lance we know and love.” A buzzer sounded throughout the training deck, and the bots came to life right as the paladins leapt to action.

Despite this being Keith’s first training session with the group, Coran had not elected to take it easy on them today. The drones were numerous, and quick, and took no down time, and judging by how fast Shiro was moving with the gladiator, and his harried grunts, the offense side of the drill was no picnic either.

Still, Lance certainly wasn’t about to let a little thing like a high difficulty setting take him down, so he kept himself steeled throughout the fight, jumping and ducking and twisting around Shiro’s larger form to block off all incoming shots from the drones.

They were both panting from exertion by the time Shiro finished the gladiator bot off, and they took the moment to catch their breath, hands on their knees. Lance looked across the deck to see that Pidge and Allura were still finishing off their own bots. Hunk and Keith, though, were standing still, and neither were doubled over the way Lance and Shiro were, so they must have already had a little bit of time to rest and recover, meaning they must have finished their bots off first.

Keith was watching the girls complete their drill, and Hunk turned toward where Lance was standing. When his gaze met Lance’s, Hunk pointed his thumb toward Keith and silently mouthed, ‘wow.’

Lance raised a brow and mouthed back, ‘what?’, but before Hunk could respond, Allura landed a final blow against her gladiator, and the last bots remaining on the deck dissipated. “Good work, all!” Coran said over the speaker. “Let’s switch partners and run it again!” Lance’s groan wasn’t loud enough to drown Coran out as he continued, “Lance, you’ve got Allura; Pidge, you’re on Keith; Hunk, Shiro. You’ve got thirty ticks to catch your breath before we start. Go!”

With minimal exhausted muttering they shuffled around the training deck to their new partners, and the muttering stopped as they instead devoted their breath to steadying and readying themselves before the drill began again. When it did, the bots kept their speed from last time, but fortunately the drones seemed to stick to the same flying patterns as the previous round, so that made up for any fatigue Lance was dealing with now.

Coran kept up a string of encouragement and tips through the overhead speaker. “Keep your partner in your peripheral vision, defense!” and “Don’t forget about those low shots!” and “Watch it, now, step back too far and too suddenly and you’ll trip right over your partner!”

Sweat was starting to trickle into Lance’s eyes by the time this round ended, and Coran still offered them no respite. The instant Hunk and Shiro finished off their bot, the last group to do so, his voice sounded again: “One more go at it! Switch up the partners one last time, and then we can take a hydration break afterward!”

Reluctantly they moved again, and this time Lance found himself guarding Keith. The latter may have been making quick work of his gladiator bots, but it was clear up close that it was still taking a physical toll on him just as much as it had on the rest of them. Keith was coated in a glistening layer of sweat, his cheeks were beet red, and his shoulders bobbed up and down in time with his audible breaths.

“If you’re too tired to keep up with the group for this long,” Lance said to him, “You can just let Coran know and he can pause the drill for you. No one would would judge you for it.”

Keith shot him a glare over his shoulder. “Not a chance,” he growled, before turning back and readying his sword. Lance got his own shield into position, and soon the bots were on them for the third time.

The last two rounds, Lance had done precisely what he was supposed to in drills like these: make sure to keep his partner at the edge of his vision, but his focus on the bots he was shielding against. He was used to fighting alongside Shiro and Allura anyway, so there was nothing new to observe. He knew their styles, knew how to work around them without needing to watch them closely, and there was nothing too unexpected of them.

In this round, though, he couldn’t help but let his curiosity be piqued by the rapid flurry of metal clanging against metal at his side, so he simply had to at least catch some decent glimpses of Keith’s swordfighting in action.

And, well, it was obvious immediately why Hunk had been impressed by it.

Keith was throwing himself into his fight with the gladiator bot with a ferocity that would have been better suited to a fight to the death than to a training exercise. His sword slid easily, swiftly, through the air in a frenzy of attacks, as smoothly as if the sword was an extension of Keith’s arm itself, and he was as light on his feet as a startled cat. Apparently he had done a good job of regaining some energy and muscle since his sparring session with Lance.

And as he dove smoothly toward the bot again with an animalistic growl escaping through his clenched teeth, the Galra side of him suddenly seemed glaringly obvious.

Lance must have been more focused on watching Keith’s fighting than he’d realized, because before he knew it, a laser blast from one of the drones that had completely escaped Lance’s notice wound up hitting Keith directly in the shoulder, nearly toppling him right into the arms of the gladiator bot.

“Head in the game, Number Three!” Coran called as Lance hastened to block that spot with his shield a full tick too late.

He shook his head clear and pulled his focus back to the bots, and fortunately managed to block any other big hits from the drones from striking Keith. And they were the first to finish off their gladiator.

It was a hell of a relief when Coran finally dismissed them for a water break and they gathered at the front of the deck where the water pouches were stocked. Keith removed his helmet the moment he reached the water and immediately dumped half of one pouch onto his head, then shook his hair out like a dog before actually drinking from it, leaving Lance wrinkling his nose and wiping away the droplets of water that had splashed into his eye.

He sank down against the wall with his own water pouch, and was shortly joined by Hunk flopping to the floor next to him. “Okay,” Hunk said quietly after a gulp of water. “Can we discuss Keith with those bots, please? Because my mind is still kinda blown here.”

“He was all right,” Lance relented.

“All right? Dude was taking that thing on like a training bot had murdered his family and this was his only chance to get revenge. Seriously, I did not expect him to be that  _fast!_ ”

“Eh.” Lance shrugged. “I mean, he’s not bad, sure, but I’m just thinking, you know, there’s more to being good in a battle than being a fast flyer and flashy with a sword. You gotta have, like, keen observation skills, and a good head for strategy, and know how to keep your cool, and have a decent haircut.”

“Haircut?”

“Yeah, to - to keep your hair out of your eyes. And to not embarrass yourself in front of the enemy.”

“Ah. Well,  _I_  still thought it was pretty impressive.”

“You impress too easily, buddy,” Lance said, giving Hunk a pat on the back.

Soon they were wrapping up the water break, and Coran directed them back onto the deck. “Same partners as the last round,” he said over the speaker. “But we’re switching roles. Offense is on range attack, and you’re aiming to take down the flying drones this time. Defense, keep your shield up, your objective is to protect your partner from the gladiator. At the ready now.”

Lance grinned and summoned his bayard, just a little relieved that it morphed into its assault rifle form with no stalling this time. Sure, okay, Keith had had his chance to show off what he could do in close combat. But ranged attacks were Lance’s time to shine.

He held his rifle at the ready and waited for the drill to begin, then took his first shot at one of the swooping drones. The shot hit dead on, but to Lance’s surprised, he found himself knocked an inch back on his feet, the butt of the rifle clunking against his armor. That was certainly… odd. His rifle had always had minimal recoil, if any at all.

He swung the rifle to aim at the next drone, missing it by just an inch. Apparently he hadn’t swung it as rapidly as he’d thought he had. The rifle was feeling heavy, was the thing. And - he couldn’t quite explain it, but it felt somehow off-balance. It was the same shape as always, but somehow didn’t seem to be fitting into his arms quite the way it was supposed to.

It was so minor, some sensation more akin to a gut feeling than any actual observable change on the bayard, but he could swear up and down that something was different.

“You all right back there, Lance?” Keith grunted.

Hastily Lance renewed his focus and blasted another drone. Difference or no, this was still his rifle, and he was still the sharpshooter. “I’m wonderful, thanks for asking,” he answered. “You just focus on your own job, okay?”

They returned to the fight without another word exchanged between them.

* * *

It was after a couple of days, and thus a couple more training sessions, that Lance finally decided to see if something could be done about the troubles with his bayard. They weren’t major problems - the delays only lasted fractions of a section, and the recoil and balance issues were small enough that could have been ignorable - but… they were still odd. Up to this point, his bayard had been nothing short of perfect every time he used it, be it in battle or training. Part of him even wondered if part of it was just in his head, if maybe he was subconsciously changing the way he held his rifle and that’s why it felt weird in his arms.

But that wouldn’t explain the incident a few days back when his bayard hadn’t come when he’d summoned it. There was no way he had imagined that.

More likely than not, he reasoned, the bayard was just in need of some sort of tune-up, like so many other things in this ancient. So he went in search of Coran, figuring he would be the one to have some idea of how bayard maintenance was supposed to work.

After a bit of searching he found the advisor in the hangar, welding mask on and with a torch held to the delta wing of a half-repaired cruiser, the lower half of Hunk’s body sticking out from underneath the ship from where he lay on his back fiddling with something from below.The latter slid out when he heard Lance’s footsteps echoing across the hangar.

“Hey Lance!” he called with a wave of a grease-stained hand. “Coming along nice, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Lance answered. “Almost can’t tell it went on a suicide run almost a week ago.”

“That’s the goal.”

“Coran, can I talk to you for a sec?” Lance asked. Coran stayed focused on his torch, until Hunk nudged him with his foot and he looked toward him, extinguishing the torch and lifting his mask. “Hm?” he asked.

“Lance needs you,” Hunk said, nodding toward Lance.

“Need something, Number Three?” Coran asked, setting the torch down on the floor beside him.

“I do, yeah,” Lance said. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind taking a look at my bayard?”

“Hm? Why?”

Lance lifted the bayard in his hand and held it out to Coran. “Well, it’s been - it’s been being, I dunno,  _weird,_  during training.”

“How so?”

“Like, it’s, I dunno, it feels heavier, kinda, and sorta off-balance? It’s not, like, fitting the way it’s supposed to. I didn’t know if maybe something is up with the metal?”

Coran hummed thoughtfully as he took the bayard from Lance’s hand and held it up to examine, and Lance continued, “And a few days ago, I was doing some solo training, and it - ”

“Hunk, can I have the wire cutters again?”

Lance nearly jumped at the sound of a new voice, and whipped his head around to see Keith, leaning half out the now open door of the cockpit. Lance had nearly forgotten, Keith was helping Coran and Hunk with the repairs on this thing. Really the least he could do, seeing as he was the one who had gone and smashed it up in the first place.

“Yeah, lemme grab them, hang on,” Hunk said, sliding back under the ship, followed by the clattering sound of a toolbox being rummaged through. Keith lifted a hand toward Lance in greeting, and Lance returned it with a nod, noticing as he did that Coran had followed through on his promise to get Keith some clothes of his own. He’d still kept the pattern from Lance’s jeans and baseball tee, but with a much darker blue for the jeans, and cranberry red replacing the teal of the shirt’s collar and sleeves.

The red actually looked quite decent on him. Or perhaps the old blue had just  _really_  not been Keith’s color and this was simply that much better in comparison. One of the two.

“You were saying, Lance?” Coran asked.

“Huh?” Lance said, turning back to him.

“You said something had happened with your bayard a few days ago?”

“Oh, right. Um - ” He glanced over in Keith’s direction, where he still stood waiting for Hunk to find the tool. “It, uh, it - ” This was stupid. It wasn’t like there was anything  _embarrassing_  about his bayard having a little glitch. There was no reason he shouldn’t want to share that information in front of Keith. So he had no explanation for the fact that he was now suddenly nervous about telling Coran about the glitch, or why some dumb feeling in his gut was insisting that it was none of Keith’s business.

“Yes, Lance?”

“It didn’t, uh, didn’t work at first,” Lance admitted. “Like, it didn’t go into rifle mode when I called on it too, it just stayed dormant. I mean, I got it back up and working pretty quick, just had to bang on it a little, but it was weird.”

Coran’s mustache twitched as a frown furrowed across his face. “Has it done that at any other time? Or, have there been any other more major glitches like that?”

“Wait, Lance’s bayard is broken?” Keith asked.

“It’s not broken!” Lance snapped. “It’s still pretty fine, probably just needs a tune-up or something. Not a big deal, really, just thought I’d ask you about it.”

“Well, there’s no  _obvious_  damage to it,” Coran said as he turned the bayard over in his hands. “But there’s only so much I can tell from a cursory glance, of course. I’ll take a closer look at it in the workshop once we’re done here. And if I can’t find anything to adjust, I’ll pass it along to Allura.”

“Why Allura?”

“The paladins’ bayard, like the Lions, are an amalgamation of both technology and alchemy, all forged with the same comet. If the problem is not with the tech, there’s probably something going on on the alchemical side of things. Allura’s not exactly an expert in the field, but she’s still more knowledgeable on the topic than I.”

“Ah, okay,” Lance said. In his stomach he felt a flutter of relief. Yes, it made sense. They’d been doing a lot of wormholing lately, they’d had unstable quintessence inside the castle, there was… whatever the flying quiznak Keith’s whole deal was. It seemed reasonable that a magical object exposed to all this other magical weirdness might get a bit wonky because of it.

Of course, none of the other paladins were having problems with  _their_  bayards, but space magic didn’t seem to operate on logic and fairness. This was probably no exception.

“I’ll get this back to you as soon as we’ve looked it over and made any needed tweaks,” Coran said. “Hopefully if there’s any problem, it’s nothing we won’t be able to sort out before the next training session. So, I’m sure you’ve absolutely nothing to fret about.”

“Thanks Coran,” Lance said with a grateful nod.

“You’re welcome. Off you trot, now, unless you wanted to lend a hand with the cruiser?”

“Nah, I don’t figure I’d be much of a help when it comes to ship repair. You guys have fun, though.”

Coran waved him goodbye before bringing his mask back to his face to resume his welding, and Lance made his exit, feeling lighter leaving the hangar than he had when he’d entered.

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, APPARENTLY people didn't WANT an ending in which this whole plot was just a dream, Keith and Lance have a make-out session on top of everybody's breakfast, Shiro magically becomes a good cook, and the Lions of Voltron become Tigers for no reason whatsoever. I can't imagine why not, but fine, fine, I suppose I'll just have to keep this plot going. You win.

“ - so while your Green Paladin was certainly correct in her assessment of this particular sample of quintessence being ‘unstable’, the fluctuations don’t seem to be at risk of creating energy emittences that would pose any danger beyond that of the strains we’ve studied up to this point, nor have we detected any sign of decay.”

Lance paused in his tracks as the door to the bridge hissed closed behind him. He hadn’t meant to interrupt anything, he was just looking to talk to Allura, and while he had been correct in assuming this was where he would be able to find her, he hadn’t realized she would be deep in conversation with Ryner on the holoscreen, Pidge in the seat next to Allura, nestled into the chair and her hands on her chin. Even from the back, Lance could tell she had her thinking face on in full gear.

Allura glanced black toward him, and he gave a sheepish wave. “Sorry,” he said softly, and Pidge spun in her chair to face the intruder. “Didn’t realize I was interrupting anything.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Allura said. “This wasn’t classified information or anything, Ryner was just updating us on her team’s research of the quintessence sample. We’re nearly finished.”

“Learn anything good?” Lance asked.

“Nothing definitive,” Ryner answered him. “We’ve been analyzing the structure of the quintessence sample we were sent and were able to detect differences between it and the records of quintessence structure that my team’s been using for their secondhand research, but we’ve yet to determine both the causes and the consequences for this difference, nor whether the structural change and the energy fluctuations are causative or simply concurrent.”

Lance blinked. “So, um, that means…”

“The quintessence is shaped weird,” Pidge explained, “But we don’t know yet whether or how that matters.”

“Ah,” Lance said with a nod. “Well, um, good work, math people. Keep it up.”

“Thank you,” said Ryner. “We had no intentions to stop.”

“Well, no, I just meant - ”

“By the by, Princess, your many-legged friend Slav has been in contact with me regarding some of his own current research regarding an incident of a location vanishing? He has some very interesting theories on the topic of alchemical versus quantum mechanical definitions on the concept of existence, although apparently his theories are still very much in the embryonic stage. I wish you had told me earlier that you had Slav working with you on the matter of your guest’s predicament, we could have started collaborating on research sooner.”

Allura furrowed her brow. “I… hadn’t realized Slav was even doing that research?”

“Really?” Ryner said. “He told me that Coran had requested it himself.”

“Yes, he had contacted Slav, but I hadn’t realized Slav had agreed. I didn’t think Coran had even gotten a chance to explain what wanted him to look into.”

“It’s Slav,” Pidge said. “He probably figured it out by Coran’s body language or saw a prophecy about it in his dinner or something. Don’t attempt to understand how his brain works, you’ll injure yourself.”

Ryner gave a small smile. “Whatever the case, if there’s any relevancy of his research to our own, we will update you. And you will let us know if you learn anything from the Blade’s examination of their sample?”

“Of course,” Allura said with a nod. “Hopefully we’ll be hearing from them soon.”

“We’ll work with what we have in the meantime,” Ryner said. “Signing off.”

The holoscreen went dark. Pidge stood from the chair, stretching her back out with a yawn. “Well,” she said, “Not much new stuff to work with here, not ‘til they get a working theory going on that whole quintessence structure deal. I’m gonna go help Coran sort through those reports the rebel scouts sent in.”

“Go ahead, he’ll appreciate the assistance,” Allura said, dismissing her with a nod before turning back to Lance. “So, you wanted to speak with me?”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “About - ”

“About your bayard, I assume?”

Lance nodded. “Coran said he passed it on to you to look over?”

“He did, yes. Come along with me to fetch it. I brought it with me over to crystal utility room to see if their quintessential energy could help amplify any irregularities with your bayard so I could identify them.”

“And did they?” Lance asked as he traipsed behind her into the hall.

Allura shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. Or at least, there weren’t any irregularities to detect. Sorry, Lance, but as far as I can tell, your bayard is in perfect working order.”

Lance frowned. “If that’s the case, then why has it been getting wonky on me in training?”

“I do have a hypothesis on that,” Allura answered. “Although nothing to confirm it. The bayards have an inherent connection to their respective Lions, so perhaps if there’s something causing problem with the bayard, the root cause is actually an irregularity in the Red Lion. It would make sense, I suppose. You were the one that carried Keith’s damaged cruiser back to the castle, so the Red Lion was holding the unstable quintessence samples right in her mouth. It’s probably even more likely that the exposure would leave some lingering effects on the Lion than on the bayard.”

“So, if something’s up with Red, what do I do about it?”

“I’ve asked Pidge and Coran to run a maintenance check on the Red Lion, so we’ll see if they spot anything. In the meantime, you could try to work with your lion bond a bit to see if there’s anything going on. Is she detects something amiss herself, she would probably communicate it to you. Have you been in the hangar with her much since your bayard started malfunctioning?”

“Um…” Lance furrowed his brow. Come to think of it, he actually couldn’t recall having spent _any_ time with Red since their last mission. It wasn’t as if he had been avoiding it, it had just completely slipped his mind, what with training and traveling and the issues with his bayard. Immediately his gut twinged with guilt; he suddenly felt like a neglectful pet owner. “Shit,” he sighed. “No, I haven’t. Do you think maybe she’s messing with my bayard because she’s annoyed with me?’

“Mm, doubtful,” Allura said. “We’ve all been busy as of late, so the Lions would certainly be understanding of that. Besides, the Lions are many things, but petty is not one of them. Although, I suppose if any of the Lion _were_ to be a little spiteful, the Red Lion would probably be the most likely candidate. Your bayard,” she added, as they had reached the utility room. She picked it up off a low metal table and handed it to Lance.

“Thanks,” Lance said as he took it.

“I really wouldn’t worry too much about this little anomaly. I’m certain it’s nothing that cannot be dealt with.” She offered him a small smile before continuing, “If you would like something to _actually_ worry about, getting the quintessence samples sent out and the locations from that transport log scouted out has made it clear that the Voltron Coalition is going to need to be focussing on getting more vehicular capital and forming alliances with more planets that host hubs of interplanetary transit.”

Lance furrowed his brow. “Wait, why would that worry me?”

“Because,” Allura answered, “Coran has already started scheduling more airshows, parades, and dinner parties for Voltron.”

Lance let out a long groan. “Wonderful. You know, the first three million PR events were actually fun to do. The ten million after, it really started to lose its charm.”

“Well, it appears the current count is now up to thirteen million and four. Have fun dreading them.”

“I’ll try. Thanks.”

He made his exit, bayard in hand. It seemed his next task would be getting a little one-on-one time in with Red. Not a problem. The fact that he hadn’t thought to do so of his own accord lately honestly shook him.

No one liked to be neglected. Not even giant robotic lions.

He set out toward the hangars, passing by the living quarters along his way, all quiet as everyone in the castle went about their own tasks. The only other sign of life he came across was in passing the training deck; the lights were on and Lance could hear the clangs of metal-on-metal sounding through the deck, a clear sign that someone was in there, probably locked in combat with a bot.

He stopped to peer inside, curious. The team had already had a training session this morning, and Lance’s muscles were still a little sore from it. Additional training today seemed simply unnecessary.

One glance onto the deck later after sliding open the door, and Lance realized he probably should have guessed who the occupant was. Keith was in the middle of the deck, his day clothes soaked through with sweat, practice sword in hand and spinning to fight two gladiators, one on either side of him, and all the three of the participants in this fight giving it all they had. Keith managed a slice through one of the gladiators in what would be the neck had the bot been a person, and it evaporated and left him to focus on the other bot for another half a minute before managing to run it through, leaving it dissipating as well.

“ _Exercise complete_ ,” a computerised voice said from overhead. “ _Completion time: eight doboshes, twenty-one ticks_.”

“Dammit,” Keith spat as he bent to put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “Dammit, dammit.”

“What’s wrong?” said another voice. Lance nearly jumped, not having noticed Shiro standing on the sideline, watch Keith fight. The black paladin strode to join Keith in the middle of the deck. “I thought that one was really solid. Your footwork was steadier.”

“It was nine ticks slower than the last round,” Keith replied. “And half a dobosh over my usual time from… from before.” He sighed and straightened up. “I’m still rusty.”

“Hm,” Shiro said. “If this is ‘rusty’, remind me never to get into a fight with you when you’re at the top of your game.” Shiro was facing away from Lance, so the latter couldn’t see his face, but he could hear the joking smile in his voice.

Keith, however, didn’t return it. He just sighed and set the tip of his practice sword onto the floor to lean against the handle. “Might be the weapon having something to do with it,” he said. “It’s - I’m not used to - to just using any old sword, you know? The bayards and my Marmora blade, they would always specifically change and mold to fit me just right, be exactly the weight and shape that was best for me. Then again, I’ve still been able to use other weapons before and all… I dunno, maybe it’s not the sword. Maybe it’s just me.”

“Keith, you don’t need to beat yourself up over not getting the greatest time on a training exercise,” Shiro said. “It makes sense for you to be rusty. After all, you’ve just gotten back into weapons training after so long without it. And Coran says you’re still a little underweight - ”

“Yeah, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary,” Keith said with a shrug. “That’s always been the case. But I was faster before - before everything…” He looked down at his sword. “Or, at least, I remember being faster… I guess maybe that was… those memories were…” He took a slow, deep breath. “Fuck, this whole thing’s a mess, isn’t it. Here I am just trying to get back to normal, and the ‘normal’ isn’t even real. The only standard I have to measure myself by doesn’t even exist.”

“Hey, hey, Keith, it’s all right,” Shiro said. “Here, let’s get you some water, okay?”

He turned, and his brows shot up in surprise. “Lance! How long have you been here?” Keith’s head shot up too, and he immediately straightened up to stand tall, schooling his face back to neutral as if he hadn’t just been caught in the middle of a mini existential crisis.

“Uh, not long,” Lance answered hesitantly.

“Do you need the training deck?” Keith asked. “I was just finishing up.”

“No, no, I was just peeking in, wondering who was in here,” Lance answered. He scratched the back of his neck, uncertain, before slowly adding, “You, uh, you were doing a good job, you know.” Because as much as he was loath to admit it, and as much as this guy had been managing to sneak his way under his skin ever since he had shown up and turned Voltron’s world and daily life on its head, it was true. Keith was, if nothing else, a hell of a swordsman. “Especially considering, you know, all the - all the shit, with everything,” Lance finished lamely.

Shiro smiled gratefully at Lance before saying, “He’s right, you know, Keith. Heck, even in the short time you’ve been training with the team, you’ve been making improvements.”

“Mm.” Keith offered them another little shrug before making his way to the store of water pouches and getting himself a drink.

With a raised brow, Shiro moved toward him, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, don’t discount the little things, Keith. You really have been doing a remarkable job. Not just with the training, but… with everything. Adjusting to being out of that Galra prison, settling into the castle, working with all of us. I know this hasn’t been easy for you, and it’s understandable to be frustrated with the whole situation, but considering just what that situation _is_ , well, you’re doing remarkably.” He pulled Keith closer into a bit of a one-armed hug. “You should be proud.”

Lance’s eyes stayed locked on Shiro’s arm, the way it wrapped around Keith’s shoulders, the hand moving up and down Keith’s biceps in a comforting, soothing gesture before falling away. An easy, familiar motion, as if Shiro was accustomed to it, as if he had been around to walk Keith through sour moods for ages.

He was like that, Shiro was. Always the big brother to his teammates. To everyone. Nothing particularly exceptional about it.

So Keith really didn’t need to make such a show of relaxing and leaning into the touch, closing his eyes as he sipped at his water and rolling his shoulder as Shiro released it like he was absorbing the lingering contact.

God, Keith was so extra.

“Thanks,” Keith said. He took another gulp of his water before capping the pouch and turning to Lance. “Hey, uh, while we’re on the topic of improving, any chance you’re up for a rematch of our little sparring session? I’ve gotten protein lately - I think I could probably take you.”

He sent Lance a cocky grin, and the latter shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Maybe some other time.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. You’re already worn out from your own training. It would just be unfair to you, you know? I would feel guilty pummeling you if I’ve got that much of an advantage.”

“All right,” Keith said. “Rain check, then.”

“Right. Rain check.”

* * *

 

“Hey there, Red,” Lance said as he settled down onto the Lion’s paw, nestling into the joint with his back against the pastern. “Long time no chit-chat, huh?”

Red was silent, and Lance let out a sigh, stretching his legs out to fold in front of him. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, you’re probably a little annoyed with me. Sorry about that. It’s not like I’ve been avoiding spending time with you or anything, I’ve just been busy lately. There’s a lot going on in the castle.”

This time he got a response, a hint of a rumble in the back of his mind, accompanied by a brief mental picture of a formless white glow. “The quintessence stuff is part of it, yeah,” he answered. “That’s actually part of why I’m here. My bayard’s been a little out of whack lately, and Allura and Coran think that maybe being around unstable quintessence might have caused some weirdness in it. And in you, actually.”

Red’s response was more energy than image in his mind this time, and something about the vibes she was sending his way, seemed accusatory. Lance grimaced. “Well, no, wait, that’s not the _only_ reason I came by today, Red! I did just wanna spend some time with you too! You’re my girl, Red, I love being with you. I’m just saying, getting everything back in order is a _bonus_ of me hanging with you. You get that, right?”

The agreement she sent him was reluctant, and Lance couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. “Damn, you’d think after ten thousand years, you’d have outgrown that sort of petty impatience. It’s beneath you, Red.” He stretched out his arms before tucking them behind his head and leaning back into Red’s ankle. “All right, let’s see, updates for you. Coran’s got some more airshows scheduled, so be prepared for those.”

A low rumble. “Oh, shut up, you know you love them. You were born to show off. Such a cat. Uh, other updates. Hunk said they finished fixing up that cruiser Keith smashed, so now he’s gonna have more time for baking again, which is a relief because I have been _craving_ cookies the last few days. I had stored a couple of the last batch in my room for emergencies but they disappeared. Allura swears up and down that the mice didn’t take it, but they looked so smug when I asked about it. I’m pretty sure she’s covering for them.”

Red sent an image his way, a memory of Keith’s cruiser crashing into the side of that cargo ship, with a questioning tone overlaying it. “Yeah, that’s the one,” Lance said with a nod. “He banged it up real good. We’ve got Keith training with the team now, actually. Isn’t that something, he wrecks a cruiser and basically gets rewarded for it.”

The vibes she seemed to send this time seemed a little scolding, accompanied by the mental image of flames and sparks. “Yeah, yeah, okay, I wasn’t meaning to insult him,” Lance said, rolling his eyes. “Just saying. And, okay, sure, he’s a real spitfire in a fight, is that what you’re trying to say?”

A little purr at the back of his mind. “Well, whatever. He’s keeping up. Hopefully he’ll hold himself together a bit better next time he’s along for a mission. You don’t need to be using up all your time scooping him up out of the sky after crazy stunts, right, Red? You’ve got better things to do.” He grinned up at her. “Like, say, focus on me? Your favorite man in the world?”

Her grumpy agreement had his grin broadening, and he nodded in response to her questioning rumble. “I know, two-way street. I’ll focus more on you too, I swear. And hey, you gotta help me out with the bayard thing, okay? We’ll make a deal: I get my shit together for your sake, you get your shit together for mine. Sound good?”

“And I don’t need any sass from you,” he added when Red broadcast to his mind something halfway between a purr and a growl. “None of the other Lions backtalk their paladins like this.” He sighed and gave her little smile. “You’re still a good kitty though, Red. Love you.”

The little surge of warmth that Red sent to his gut seemed to say that that had appeased her.

**Author's Note:**

> I post chapters early on [my tumblr](http://justheretobreakthings.tumblr.com). You can also get the chapters early by following me home and hacking into my computer. The former option, however, is preferable.


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